PITTSBURGH – A Pennsylvania teenager has filed a lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram, holding the social media apps responsible for the development of her eating disorder and related self-harm, through their use of advertising and targeted algorithms designed to maximize user engagement.
Isabella Dienes of Rochester Mills filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on Aug. 10 versus Meta Platforms, Inc., Facebook Holdings, LLC, Facebook Operations, LLC, Facebook Payments, Inc., Facebook Technologies, LLC, Instagram, LLC and Siculus, Inc., all of Menlo Park, Calif.
“Plaintiff Isabella Dienes is a 19 year-old girl who is a heavy user of Meta platforms. Shortly after registering to use Meta platforms(s) at the age of six, plaintiff began engaging in addictive and problematic use of the platform(s). Dienes’s interest in any activity other than viewing and posting on Meta platforms(s) progressively declined,” the suit says.
“Prompted by the addictive design of defendants’ product(s), and the constant notifications that defendants’ platform pushed Dienes 24 hours a day, she began getting less and less sleep. As a proximate result of her addiction to Meta platforms(s), and specifically due to recommendations and content defendants selected and showed to Dienes, an adolescent user of Meta platforms(s), she subsequently developed injuries including, but not limited to, attempted self-harm, self-harm, eating disorder, including binge-eating, excessive exercising, and purging.”
The suit adds that the defendants have “designed Meta platforms(s) to allow children and adolescents to use, become addicted to, and abuse their product without the consent of the users’ parents, like [the plaintiff’s] parents” – and “specifically designed Meta platforms(s) to be an attractive nuisance to underage users, but failed to exercise the ordinary care owed to underage business invitees to prevent the rampant, foreseeable, and deleterious impact on adolescent users that access the Meta platforms.”
Additionally, the suit claims that the defendants know or knew of the prospect of its adolescent users becoming addicted to social media platforms, but pushing ahead with their marketing nonetheless.
“Defendants have intentionally designed their product to maximize users’ screen time, using complex algorithms designed to exploit human psychology and driven by advanced computer algorithms and artificial intelligence available to two of the largest technology companies in the world. Defendants have progressively modified their product to promote problematic and excessive use that they know threatens the actuation of addictive and self-destructive behavioral patterns,” the suit claims.
For counts of strict liability (design defect), strict liability (failure to warn), strict liability (manufacturing defect), products liability (negligent design), products liability (negligent failure to warn), products liability (negligent manufacturing), negligence/gross negligence, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, fraudulent concealment, conspiracy to commit fraud, unjust enrichment, violation of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligent failure to recall/retrofit and medical monitoring, the plaintiff is seeking the defendants to be declared jointly and severally liable, compensatory damages, actual damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees, expert fees, costs, pre- and post-judgment interest, medical monitoring costs and any other relief the Court may deem equitable and just.
The plaintiff is represented by Eve M. Elsen, Emily Jeffcott and Narmeen Nkeiti of Morgan & Morgan, in Pittsburgh, Pensacola, Fla. and Orlando, Fla., respectively.
The defendants have not yet retained legal counsel.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania case 2:22-cv-01166
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com