INSTAGRAM IN THE DOCK: Lawsuits accuse platform of fueling EATING DISORDERS in teenage girls
Instagram’s parent company Meta has been accused in two federal lawsuits of causing and contributing to eating disorders and various other mental health problems in teenage girls.
One lawsuit, filed by Candace Wuest and her daughter, alleged that her daughter, named as CN in the suit, became addicted to Instagram at the age of 12, and later the platform's algorithm started to display content enouraging disordered eating, which resulted in several suicide attempts by CN.
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The filing said, “Candace Wuest was unaware of it at the time, but Meta’s inherently dangerous algorithms and recommendation systems had escalated CN from delicious recipes to healthy recipes and then to dangerous recipes — for example, recipes designed to achieve negative caloric intake.”
Soon, the student’s grades and life turned worse, as she was forced to leave high school after “her life-long honor roll track record become Ds and Fs.” In August 2018, CN “almost passed out” after a shopping trip and was taken to the hospital.
CN was later transferred to Cincinnati Children’s Liberty Campus, and was hospitalized for two and a half weeks.
The second lawsuit was filed by Alexandra “Alex” Martin, now 19, and her parents, Benjamin Martin and Jennifer Martin.
The Martins lawsuit states that Alex started using Instagram at the age of 12. Her story is eerily similar to CN's, and how Instagram prompted an eating disorder and attempted suicide.
Meta created the 'perfect storm of addiction'
The filing alleges, “Meta knew or should have known that she was under the age of 13, however, Meta designed its product to encourage such illegal and unauthorized use, and in a manner that encouraged Alex to eventually open multiple accounts, including secret accounts her parents did not know about.”
The filing also added how “Meta created a ‘perfect storm’ of addiction, social comparison, and exposure to incredibly harmful content and product features, then operated its algorithms to push and promote harmful content.”
Alex was hospitalized for the first time in 2016, after which she was diagnosed with anorexia.
The filing says, “Alex would make up what she had eaten that day, so that her parents did not worry.” It continued, “She would take food out of wrappers and hide the food at the bottom of the garbage can, while putting the empty wrappers at the top. She would pretend to eat at dinner with her family, but then spit food into her napkin or feed it the family’s dogs.”
The former athlete was unable to participate and tried to commit suicide. According to the lawsuit, Alex recovered but relapsed in May of 2020 and then got bulimia. After Alex's parents found out about the bulimia, they got her "admitted to a facility in Tennessee called Fairhaven, and she was admitted for inpatient treatment until sometime in July 2020.”
The plaintiffs claim that both the tragedies in the cases, were more or less predicted by Meta itself. Dozens of the internal documents, referred to as “The Facebook Papers,” have been included in the lawsuits.