Families say social media put their kids in danger | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
Parents are suing social media companies including Meta, claiming Instagram's algorithms and lack of age verification drove their children into eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide by recommending dangerous content. Internal Facebook documents showed the company knew Instagram made one-third of teen girls feel worse about their bodies and pushed vulnerable users toward anorexia and self-harm material. The families demand age verification, disabled algorithms directing kids to harmful content, and parental warnings, arguing platforms prioritize profits over child safety.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
When whistleblower Frances Haugen released thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents in fall 2021, the documents revealed troubling signs that the social media giant knew its platforms could negatively impact youth and were doing little to effectively change it. With around 21 million American adolescents on social media, parents took note. Today, there are more than 1,200 families pursuing lawsuits against social media companies, including TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Roblox, and Meta, the parent company to Instagram and Facebook. More than 150 lawsuits will be moving forward next year.
The content in this story is alarming, but it was included because parents say the posts impacted their kids' mental health and in some cases helped lead to the death of their children.
"They're holding our children hostage and they're seeking and preying on them."
The Spence family is suing social media giant Meta. Kathleen and Jeff Spence say Instagram led their daughter Alexis into depression and to an eating disorder at the age of 12.
"We realized that we were slowly losing her. We really had no comprehension to how severe social media had affected our daughter. She was being drawn into this hidden space and this dark world."
The Spences, both middle school teachers from Long Island, New York, gave 11-year-old Alexis a cell phone to keep in touch with them after school. They had very strict rules including keeping the phone in the hall at night and checking the phone with restrictions.
Alexis would wait for her parents to fall asleep, then sit in the hallway or sneak her phone into her room. She was not allowed to use a lot of apps and they had parental controls on. She figured out workarounds pretty quickly, including apps that disguise Instagram as a calculator app.
"She was outwitting us."
"She was addicted to social media and we couldn't stop it. It was much bigger than us."
Instagram policy mandates users are 13 years old. Alexis was 11 when she joined. She checked the box saying she was 13 or older with no verification or checks.
An innocent search on Instagram for fitness routines led Alexis into a dark world. It started as fitness stuff, then the algorithm sparked diet content, then shifted into eating disorders. People posted photos of themselves who were very sickly or very thin, using them to promote eating disorders.
"Learning about diet pills and how to lose weight when you're 11 and going through puberty and like your body is supposed to be changing. Um, it's hard."
Within months, Alexis stopped looking at the content and started doing it to herself. She thought other people were doing this and needed help, but instead of getting help, she was getting advice on how to continue.
By the time she was 12, Alexis had developed an eating disorder. She had multiple Instagram accounts and would spend 5 hours a day scrolling through the app, even though it often made her feel depressed. She drew a picture of herself in her diary crying, surrounded by her phone and laptop with thoughts reading "Stupid, fat, kill yourself."
"I was struggling with my mental health. I was struggling with my depression and my body image, and social media did not help with my confidence. And if anything, it made me like hate myself."
It all came to a head her sophomore year when Alexis posted on Instagram that she didn't deserve to exist. A friend alerted a school counselor. Her parents received a call to come to the school where they were shown all of Alexis's Instagram posts about wanting to kill herself and hurt herself.
"If Instagram really has all the software to protect them, why was that not flagged? Why was that not identified?"
Previously unpublished internal documents reveal Facebook knew Instagram was pushing girls to dangerous content. In 2021, an Instagram employee ran an internal investigation on eating disorders by opening up a false account as a 13-year-old girl looking for diet tips. She was led to content and recommendations to follow "skinny binge" and "apple core anorexic." Other memos show Facebook employees raising concerns about company research that revealed Instagram made one in three teen girls feel worse about their bodies, and teens who used the app felt higher rates of anxiety and depression.
"The fact that I was sitting there struggling and hoping to save my daughter's life and they had all these documents behind closed doors that they could have protected her and they chose to ignore that research."
Attorney Matt Bergman represents the Spence family. He started the Social Media Victims Law Center after reading the Facebook papers and is now working with more than 1,200 families who are pursuing lawsuits against social media companies like Meta.
"Time and time again when they have an opportunity to choose between safety of our kids and profits, they always choose profits."
Bergman spent 25 years as a product liability attorney specializing in asbestos and mesothelioma cases. He argues the design of social media platforms is ultimately hurting kids.
"They have intentionally designed a product that is addictive. They understand that if children stay online, they make more money. Doesn't matter how harmful the material is."
"This is not a coincidence."
"These products are explicitly designed to evade parental authority."
Bergman recommends three changes:
- Age and identity verification technology that exists and is used by other platforms like Tinder
- Turn off the algorithms so users interested in exercise are not directed toward anorexic content
- Warnings so parents know what's going on
"You're never going to have social media platforms be 100% safe. But these changes would make them safer."
England Roberts was the baby in a large family, the center of her parents Tony and Brandi's world. Every day felt like Christmas. England's life online told a different story. As the pandemic played out, England wrote about struggles with self-worth, relationships, and mental health.
One August night in 2020, just a few hours after Tony and Brandi kissed their 14-year-old smiling daughter good night, Brandi received a text from a parent of one of England's friends who was worried about England. When they checked on her, her door was locked. They found her after she had died by suicide.
"When you find your child hanging and you are in that moment in disbelief. It's just no way. Not our baby. Not our child."
Prior to that night, the parents had no idea that England was depressed.
Tony Roberts started connecting the dots after the Facebook papers came out. He found an Instagram post sent to England from a friend - a video of a lady on Instagram pretending to hang herself. That's ultimately what their child did.
"How did she come up with this idea? And then when I did the research, there it was. She saw it on Instagram. It was on her phone."
Nearly a year and a half after England's death, that hanging video was still circulating on Instagram with at least 1,500 views. It was taken down in December 2021. The Roberts are suing Meta.
"If they so-called monitor and do things, how could it stay on that site? Because they're part of their policy it states they don't allow for self-harm photos, videos, things of that nature. So, who's holding them accountable?"
Meta declined the request for an interview, but its global head of safety gave a statement saying they want teens to be safe online, that Instagram doesn't allow content promoting self-harm or eating disorders, and that Meta has improved Instagram's age verification technology.
When 60 Minutes ran a test 2 months prior to the segment, their colleague was able to lie about her age and sign up for Instagram as a 13-year-old with no verification. They were also able to search for "skinny" and harmful content. While a prompt came up asking if they wanted help, they clicked "see post" and easily found content promoting anorexia and self-harm.
"We're being gaslighted by the big tech companies that it's our fault. When really, what we should be doing as parents is banding together and say, 'No, you need to do better. I'm doing everything I can. You need to do better.'"
"We've lost, we've learned, but what's going to stop these companies from continuing to let things happen if they don't change or be forced to make a change?"
"Social media is a silent killer for our children's generation. That's the conclusion I've come to. Why is everyone in power that can help change this, why is it not changing quick enough if our children are truly our future? What's the wait?"
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