The parents of a 16-year-old boy who took his own life after being targeted by a sextortion gang on Instagram are suing Meta for alleged wrongful death, in the first UK case of its kind. Murray Dowey died in December 2023 at his home in Dunblane, Scotland, after being tricked into sending intimate pictures to someone he believed was a girl his age but was actually an overseas criminal.
Ros and Mark Dowey have filed the lawsuit in Delaware, where Meta is incorporated, accusing the company of prioritising profit over user safety. The suit, brought alongside the family of 13-year-old Levi Maciejewski from Pennsylvania, also a sextortion victim, alleges that Meta’s design decisions and refusal to implement safety features led to the boys’ deaths.
The complaint claims Meta collected personal data without informed consent and used it to recommend teen users to sextortionists already identified as predators. It also alleges that Meta made misleading statements about Instagram’s safety for teens while internal testing showed the platform was matching children with adult predators.
Speaking after filing, Mark Dowey said: 'Nothing’s really changed since Murray died. These predators can still get at our children.' Ros Dowey added: 'As a parent who has first-hand experience of how devastating the flaws can be, you have a duty to warn other parents.'
Matthew Bergman, the family’s lawyer, said Meta was involved in all US sextortion cases he had filed, calling it a 'product defect issue' that Meta knew about. Instagram has previously condemned sextortion as 'horrific' and introduced new safety features, but the Doweys argue more must be done to hold the company accountable.
