Mother sues Meta and TikTok after daughter's death

In just a few months, Irene Rodgero Ugues watched her daughter Rosela's behavior change as social media served her an increasing array of self-harm content, before the 12-year-old committed suicide.

Irene and her husband only unlocked Roselle's devices after her death. They discovered that she had been using social media far more than they knew, including a secret Instagram profile called Just a dead pers0n, using a zero instead of the letter o in the word person.

In September 2023, they told Reuters, Rosela began browsing for depressing content that reflected how she was feeling. Social media algorithms kept re-resending it to her, and just five months later she was dead.

"At one point it seemed to take on a life of its own, to grow until it overpowered her cheerful, sociable side - that brighter part of her," Irene told Reuters in a private room at a cafe in the center of Asti, her hometown in northern Italy.

Rosell's parents are among families in Italy who have filed a lawsuit against Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and its biggest social media rival, TikTok. In the first class action lawsuit in Italy to directly target social media companies and their algorithms, the families are seeking stricter restrictions on access for minors and greater awareness of the risks.

Monitoring social media usage is a full-time job. It would require parents to dedicate all their time to it, which is simply unrealistic.

Both companies deny the lawsuit's allegations that their services are harmful to youth and say they are taking steps to protect younger users - by removing harmful content, limiting exposure to risky material and helping families manage children's accounts.

"We know parents are concerned about their teens' online safety, which is why we're constantly making changes to help keep teens safe," a Meta spokesperson said, citing its Teen Accounts and built-in protections.

"We strongly reject these allegations, which disregard our long-standing commitment to supporting young people."

TikTok said its efforts include strictly enforcing guidelines aimed at protecting the mental and behavioral health of users, adding that it removes more than 99 percent of content that violates those rules.

“We also continue to invest in safety measures to diversify recommended content, block potentially harmful searches, and connect vulnerable users with support services,” a TikTok spokesperson said, citing local suicide prevention hotlines.

When asked specifically about the role Instagram may have played in Rosela's case, Meta told Reuters that it would not comment directly during the court proceedings, but that a wide range of factors shaped the mental health of young people. The impact of social media platforms depends on how they are used, the safeguards in place to protect users and the level of parental involvement, the company said.

Sudden illness

Speaking slowly and choosing her words carefully, Irene said that Rosela's tragedy unfolded like a sudden, devastating "illness" that left her parents feeling powerless.

Without the algorithm, she says, "the course of her mental disorder - or psychosis, or whatever it was, which I still can't define today - might have unfolded more naturally."

Surveillance of digital platforms across Europe is intensifying, with Britain this week announcing plans to ban social media for children under 16. In the US, a court ruling found that Meta and Alphabet-owned Google were negligent in designing platforms deemed harmful to young people.

European Union regulators are stepping up enforcement of the Digital Services Act, pressuring online platforms to better protect minors and crack down on harmful content.

"The aim is not to deny the benefits of social networks, but to remove the technological and marketing mechanisms that make them harmful to the most vulnerable users," said lawyer Stefano Komodo, who is leading the case together with the Italian parents' association MOIGE.

Parents can't keep up: the limits of control

Parents say the safeguards offered by platforms are not enough, pointing out that children can easily find online instructions on how to bypass filters or avoid time limits by switching to other devices.

"Monitoring social media usage is a full-time job. It would require parents to dedicate all their time to it, and that is simply unrealistic," said Valentina Muraglje, a board member of the Italian Association of Large Families.

Her son Antonio, who as a teenager put aside his Harry Potter collection and replaced reading with endless scrolling, now in his twenties, has difficulty getting into his reading, which she attributes to social media algorithms that have weakened his concentration.

“When he got a phone at 16, the books started to disappear little by little,” she told Reuters. “Within a few years, he stopped reading altogether.”

The World Health Organization warns that problematic use of social media - marked by addictive behavior - is growing among adolescents and is linked to poorer general well-being, poor sleep and wider health risks.

Studies published in the American medical journal JAMA Paediatrics indicate measurable differences in brain development in heavy social media users, especially teenagers whose brains are still developing.

The Italian lawsuit alleges that social media platforms use reward mechanisms modeled after slot machines to encourage addiction by reactivating the secretion of dopamine, a brain substance associated with pleasure and reward.

“Each ‘like’ or notification stimulates the release of dopamine, binding users to the platform in a way reminiscent of addiction,” said Tonino Cantelmi, an advisor to prosecutors and director of the School of Specialization in Cognitive-Interpersonal Psychotherapy in Rome.

The families who filed the lawsuit allege that studies based on brain imaging of social media users show increased activity in parts of the brain associated with addiction.

When asked about the scientific evidence on addiction presented in court, spokespersons for Meta and TikTok declined to comment on the proceedings, echoing previous comments about the companies' track record in the mental health field.

An Italian lawsuit alleges that social media platforms are using reward mechanisms modeled after gambling machines to encourage addiction.

Some psychologists warn against drawing simplistic conclusions about the impact of social media on adolescents.

“The healthiest approach to working with adolescents is to accept that we are unprepared,” said Federico Tonioni, head of the Center for Web Psychopathology at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. He added that he could not conclude that his patients would suffer less in a world without social media, warning against over-reliance on parental control.

“If there is anything dangerous, it is control over children. Young people should be listened to. Control is not a healthy form of presence. The healthiest distance is trust.”

Irene Rođero Ugues said she joined the lawsuit to help make other parents aware of the risks, which she only learned about when it was too late to save Rosela.

“We underestimated certain risks and didn’t know they existed, but others could still react. There’s no point in keeping it to myself, and I don’t think Rosella would mind.”