WARNING: This story contains discussion of suicide and sex extortion.

When BC teenager Amanda Todd sat down in front of her computer and detailed the relentless harassment and extortion she faced on social media, it sent shockwaves through parents around the world. Now, twelve years later, her family is joining others in a lawsuit that claims these dangers persist for children online.

Just weeks after the viral video was posted, 15-year-old Todd killed himself in October 2012.

“Why isn’t life safer for children?” her mother Carol Todd asked in an interview in Port Coquitlam. “Why are more children injured?”

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court earlier this month on behalf of 11 families — two of whom are Canadian — who say their children have suffered physical and mental harm from the social media platforms.

It alleges that some of the world’s biggest technology companies have knowingly designed and marketed defective products to children in order to increase engagement.

Some children have taken their own lives after being targeted by strangers in sextortion, where a person threatens to reveal sexually compromising information or images. Others developed eating disorders or depression and had to be hospitalized.

The lawsuit names Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — Snapchat, TikTok parent ByteDance, Discord and Google, which owns YouTube.

“What happened to these children was neither an accident nor a coincidence. It was a predictable result of deliberate design decisions they make to maximize engagement over safety,” said Matthew Bergman, the founding attorney of Social Media Victims Law Center, which is handling the case.

“They make money selling ads to kids and selling kids’ data.”

Google said the allegations are not true. Spokesman José Castañeda said Google created services and policies with experts to provide age-appropriate experiences and parental controls.

The other companies had no comment. Their websites generally say they are age-restricted and prohibit harmful content. TikTok’s website says it moderates content “that involves goods or activities that may be risky, addictive, dangerous, fraudulent, or otherwise require a higher degree of care.”

A growing number of lawsuits have been filed against tech giants, alleging that children are being harmed by exposure to social media.

STOP | The father of the PEI sextortion victim calls for measures:

Social media companies must do more to protect teens from sextortion, PEI father demands

Carl Burke says social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok need to do a lot more to protect teenagers from sextortion. Burke’s son was a victim of sextortion and committed suicide in 2023. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, recently announced new measures to protect users from sextortion, but Burke says they don’t go far enough to keep children safe .

Blackmail leads to suicides

The latest lawsuit points to internal documents and research, including from the Facebook Papers, that were released by a whistleblower. He cites Meta documents that read: “The young are the best. You want to bring people into your service young and early.”

Todd started using Facebook in 2008. The platform was new, and her mother, like most people, thought it was designed to be fun and safe. Todd was soon caught up in years of extortion.

Aydin Coban, who is Dutch, began blackmailing Todd with a photo taken of him lifting his shirt in a conversation. His Canadian criminal trial heard Coban used 22 online aliases to harass Todd over two years, starting when he was 12.

Coban was convicted of harassment and extortion in Canada. He was also convicted in the Netherlands on similar charges involving the online extortion of 33 young girls and gay men.

The lawsuit claims there were more steps Meta could have taken to make its product safer for minors and prevent outsiders from reaching children.

The lawsuit includes the family of another Canadian teenager who died more than a decade after Todd’s case grabbed national headlines.

Harry Burke went to his father for help after the 17-year-old from Prince Edward Island sent an explicit photo on Snapchat and was sextorted for money.

The lawsuit says his parents planned to go to the RCMP in the morning, but that night Burke killed himself.

The lawsuit also represents American parents who say their children have become depressed and suicidal because of social media platforms.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said earlier this year that the mental health crisis among young people was an emergency “and social media has emerged as an important contributor”, calling for a tobacco-style warning label on the platforms.

Bergman, the attorney leading the case, said the lawsuit alleges that “these are dangerous products … and likely cause harm to children.”

They are designed to get more engagement from young people by showing more extreme material while encouraging them to interact more with the platform, Bergman said, leading to addiction and psychological damage.

Governments that form legislation

Concern over social media safety prompted a response from lawmakers on both sides of the border.

Canada’s Liberal government has attempted to pass an online damages bill. It has faced criticism, including from the opposition Conservatives, who say it will create a new bureaucracy.

The US is also moving forward with its own Child Online Safety Act to create a “duty of care,” a legal term that requires companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm. That bill passed the Senate, but it’s less certain what will happen in the House.

STOP | Carol Todd talks about the Online Damages Bill:

Amanda Todd’s mother says new online tort law ‘could have saved her life’ | Canada tonight

The Online Harms Act, tabled by the Liberal government on Monday, proposes changes to the Criminal Code and new regulatory bodies to protect children and adults from online abuse. Carol Todd, the mother of Amanda Todd, a BC teenager who killed herself after being sexually extorted, says if this legislation had been in place when her daughter was alive, it “could have saved her life.”

Carol Todd encouraged parents to connect with resources like the Canadian Center for Child Protection and make sure their children know they can talk to an adult if something happens.

She said it was important to join other families in the process to make social media safer for children.

“I can’t bring my child back … it’s to protect other children.”

Support is available to anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety or the safety of others, please call 911.

If you or someone you know is struggling, here’s where you can get help:

This guide from Center for Addiction and Mental Health shows how to talk about suicide with someone you are worried about.