A Scottish couple whose teenage son took his own life after being blackmailed on Instagram are suing the platform’s owner Meta, in what’s thought to be the first UK case of its kind.
Murray Dowey, from Dunblane, was 16 when he became a victim of sextortion in December 2023.
His parents have now launched legal action against Meta in a US court seeking punitive damages claiming that Instagram was not safe.
Meta, which also owns Facebook, said it supports law enforcement to prosecute the criminals behind sextortion, adding “we continue to fight them on our apps on multiple fronts”.
It is thought Murray had been tricked by criminals in West Africa.
Murray died in his home in Dunblane in December 2023 after he was targeted by scammers posing as a young girl.
He was tricked into sending intimate images of himself and told they would be exposed to his family if he did not pay.
Lawyers for his parents are now claiming Meta “knew of safety features that would prevent sextortion” prior to his death and instead “prioritised profit”.
Previously the company has said it had made real changes to Instagram, such as introducing teen accounts with built-in protections and giving parents the power to control their children’s online experiences.
Speaking to News, Murray’s mother Ros said: “The worst thing that could possibly happen to us has happened.
“There’s nothing that Meta can do that is worse than what’s happened so we’re up for the fight.
“We’ll take it as far as we can.”
The lawsuit, filed by the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) on behalf of Mark and Ros Dowey, is believed to be the first UK case of its kind.
Murray’s parents are named alongside a woman, Tricia Maciejewski, from Pennsylvania. Her son, Levi Maciejewski, took his own life at 13 years old.
Sextortion has become big business in Nigeria involving thousands of young men nicknamed “yahoo boys”.
Guides on how to get involved in the crime are openly for sale online, as a News investigation revealed last year.
A report from the Network Contagion Research Institute, an American advocacy organisation, on the toll of yahoo boys is cited in court documents filed by lawyers representing the two families.
The report calls the problem a “digital pandemic”.
A spokesperson for Meta said that since 2021, it had placed teenagers under 16 into private accounts when they sign up for Instagram, meaning they have to approve new followers.
They said: “We work to prevent accounts showing suspicious behaviour from following teens and avoid recommending teens to them.
“We also take other precautionary steps, like blurring potentially sensitive images sent in DMs and reminding teens of the risks of sharing them, and letting people know when they’re chatting to someone who may be in a different country.”