In a case that has drawn national attention in Italy, the parents of a 12-year-old girl say social media platforms fed their daughter an increasing stream of content encouraging self-harm, a pattern they believe was driven by algorithmic recommendations. The family, from Asti in northern Italy, joined a broader legal action targeting Meta - owner of Instagram and Facebook - and TikTok, seeking tighter protections for minors and greater awareness of the risks posed by online recommendation systems.
According to the parents, the girl, identified by family members as Rossella, began actively searching for depressive material in September 2023. Her mother, Irene Roggero Ugues, and her husband only discovered the extent of her social media activity after Rossella died by suicide and they were finally able to unlock her devices. They found a range of activity they had not previously known about, including a secret Instagram account titled 'Just a dead pers0n' - using a zero for the letter 'o' - and far more time on social platforms than the family had realized.
"At some point, it seemed to take on a life of its own, growing until it overwhelmed the cheerful, sociable side of her - the brighter part," Irene said, speaking quietly in a private room at a café in her hometown. The family recounts that social media algorithms repeatedly surfaced content that mirrored the girl’s distress; five months after those searches began, she was dead.
This lawsuit is one of several brought by families in Italy that assert social networks and their recommendation engines contributed to harm among young users. The action, led in part by lawyer Stefano Commodo and the Italian parents’ association MOIGE, is being framed as the country's first collective effort to directly challenge how tech companies expose minors to potentially harmful content.
Commodo, who is leading the case, has said the legal objective is to preserve the benefits of social media while removing the technological and marketing mechanisms that make platforms particularly risky for vulnerable users. "The goal is not to dismiss the benefits of social media, but to remove the technological and marketing mechanisms that make it harmful to the most vulnerable users," he said.
Meta and TikTok have both rejected the allegations contained in the filings. A Meta spokesperson emphasized the company's work to support teens through features such as "Teen Accounts" and other built-in safeguards, and said the company "strongly disagree[s] with these allegations, which ignore our longstanding commitment to supporting young people." Meta also declined to comment directly on the specifics of the case while litigation is pending, noting that young people’s mental health is affected by multiple factors, including how platforms are used, the safeguards in place, and parental involvement.
TikTok reiterated that it enforces strict guidelines designed to protect users' mental and behavioural health, saying it removes more than 99% of content that violates its rules. The company also said it invests in safety measures such as diversifying recommended content, blocking potentially harmful searches and connecting vulnerable users with support resources, including local suicide prevention hotlines.
Parents and campaigners argue that platform safeguards are insufficient in practice. They point out that many children learn how to bypass filters or evade time limits, for example by switching devices or following online tutorials that explain how to avoid parental controls. For families, monitoring social media usage can feel like a full-time responsibility.
Valentina Muraglie, a member of the board of Italy’s association of large families, said monitoring a child’s social media would demand more time than most parents can reasonably give. She described the difficulty of balancing parental oversight with other obligations, and recounted her own son Antonio's experience: once he had a phone, books gradually gave way to scrolling. Now in his 20s, she said he struggles with sustained reading, a change she attributes to algorithms that drew his attention away from longer-form materials.
The dispute also draws on medical and scientific concerns about problematic social media use among adolescents. The World Health Organization has warned that addiction-like patterns of social media use are rising in teenagers and are associated with reduced well-being, poor sleep and other health risks. Studies referenced in court filings and public commentary, including work published in a paediatric medical journal, report measurable differences in brain development among heavy social media users, particularly teenagers whose brains are still developing.
Plaintiffs in the Italian action have argued that platforms employ reward mechanisms akin to those used by slot machines, repeatedly triggering dopamine responses tied to notifications and likes. Tonino Cantelmi, an advisor to the plaintiffs and director of a Rome psychotherapy school, said each notification can trigger dopamine release, reinforcing attention to the platform in a way that resembles addiction. Families point to brain scan studies they say show activity in regions associated with addictive behaviour among frequent social media users.
Representatives of Meta and TikTok declined to comment on the scientific evidence presented in court, while reiterating their published positions on mental health and youth safety.
Not all clinicians agree that removing social media would necessarily reduce harm. Federico Tonioni, head of the Web Psychopathology Centre at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, cautioned against drawing straightforward conclusions. He said the healthiest approach to adolescent care involves acknowledging uncertainty and avoiding excessive control. "If there is something dangerous, it is control over children. Young people need to be listened to. Control is not a healthy form of presence. The healthiest distance is trust," he said, adding that he could not assert his patients would fare better in a world without social networks.
Legal and regulatory scrutiny of digital platforms is increasing across jurisdictions. In Europe, regulators are tightening enforcement under the Digital Services Act to push platforms to better protect minors and curb harmful content. Separately, other countries are debating or proposing restrictions on underage access to social media. In the United States, judicial findings have faulted major tech firms for negligence in how platforms were designed with respect to young users.
For the parents who filed the suit, the motivation is partly preventative. Irene said she took part in the legal action to alert other parents to risks she and her husband did not know existed until it was too late for their daughter. "We underestimated certain risks and didn’t know they existed, but others can still act. There’s no point keeping this to myself, and I don’t think Rossella would mind," she said.
Included among the materials associated with public commentary on the case is a short investment-oriented blurb that referenced whether an investment in Meta might be appropriate for some readers. That material described an AI-driven stock analysis tool that evaluates companies using a range of financial metrics and highlighted that readers can check whether the company is featured in certain investment strategies. The social and legal developments around platform safety, however, remain separate from investor-focused promotional material and are the subject of ongoing litigation and regulatory inquiry.
The case in Italy highlights tensions between technological innovation, parental responsibility, and legal accountability as societies grapple with how to protect vulnerable young people while preserving legitimate social uses of online platforms. The litigation is expected to test whether courts will require platforms to change interfaces or practices in ways that limit minors' exposure to risky material, or to alter the algorithms that recommend content.
For now, both companies maintain they are committed to protecting young users, while families and lawyers pursue remedies they say could prevent future tragedies. The litigation and the wider debate underline unresolved questions about where responsibility lies for safeguarding adolescent online experiences - with companies, regulators, caregivers or some combination of all three.