Over the course of just a few months, Italian mother Irene Roggero Ugues noticed her daughter Rossella’s behavior changing — not knowing that social media platforms were feeding her content related to self-harm and depression. The 12-year-old girl ultimately took her own life, and her parents, along with several other families in Italy, have taken legal action against Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and its biggest social media rival, TikTok.
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The young girl who searched for information about depression on social media
According to Reuters, which spoke with the 12-year-old’s parents, Rossella had begun searching for content related to depression — a sign of how she was feeling. Social media algorithms kept feeding her more of it, and five months later, the girl was dead. “At some point it seemed to operate independently, escalating until it overwhelmed her joyful social side — her brightest self,” Rossella’s mother, Irene, told Reuters from her hometown of Asti in northern Italy.
Rossella’s parents, along with several other families in Italy, have filed a lawsuit against Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook, and TikTok. In the first collective legal action in Italy to directly challenge social media companies and their algorithms, the families are calling for stricter limits on minors’ access to these platforms and greater transparency about the risks they pose.
Rossella Ugues’ parents are among a number of families in Italy that have brought a lawsuit against Instagram-and-Facebook-owner Meta, and its biggest social media rival TikTok. In the first collective action in Italy to directly challenge social media companies and their…
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 17, 2026
The companies deny the plaintiffs’ claims
Both companies deny the plaintiffs’ claims that their services are harmful to young people, arguing that they take steps to protect younger users by removing harmful content, limiting exposure to dangerous material, and helping families manage their children’s accounts.
“We know parents are concerned about the safety of their teenagers online, which is why we continuously make changes to help protect teens,” a Meta spokesperson said, pointing to Teen Accounts — a set of built-in safety controls and restrictions that Meta automatically applies for users under 18 on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, designed, according to the company, to protect teens and give parents greater oversight. “We strongly disagree with these claims, which ignore our longstanding commitment to supporting young people,” the spokesperson added.
TikTok, for its part, stated that its efforts include the strict enforcement of guidelines aimed at protecting users’ mental health and well-being, adding that it removes more than 99% of content that violates these rules. “We also continue to invest in safety measures to diversify recommended content, block potentially harmful searches, and connect vulnerable users with support resources,” a TikTok spokesperson said, referencing local suicide prevention helplines.
When asked specifically about the role Instagram may have played in Rossella’s case, Meta told Reuters it would not comment directly while the lawsuit is under review, but noted that young people’s mental health is shaped by a wide range of factors. The impact of social media, the company added, depends on how it is used, what safety measures are in place to protect users, and the level of parental involvement.
What the girl’s parents say about the tragedy that unfolded like a “sudden, catastrophic illness”
Rossella’s mother describes the tragedy as a sudden, catastrophic “illness” that left her parents powerless. Without the algorithm, she says, “the progression of her mental distress — or psychosis, or whatever it was that I still can’t quite define — might have unfolded in a more natural way.”
It is worth noting that scrutiny of digital platforms is intensifying across Europe. This week, the United Kingdom announced plans to ban children under 16 from using social media. In the United States, a court ruling found that Meta and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, are liable for the defective design of their platforms, which have been deemed harmful to young users.
EU regulators are also stepping up enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA), pressing online platforms to provide stronger protections for minors and to limit harmful content.
“The goal is not to dismiss the benefits of social media, but to remove the technological and promotional mechanisms that make it harmful to the most vulnerable users,” said attorney Stefano Comodo, who is leading the case in collaboration with the Italian parents’ association MOIGE.
On the safety measures built into social media platforms
Parents argue that the safeguards provided by these platforms are insufficient, pointing out that children can easily find online tutorials showing how to bypass filters or circumvent screen time limits by simply switching devices.
“Monitoring social media use is a full-time job. It requires parents to spend all their time doing this, and that’s simply not realistic,” said Valentina Muraglia, a board member of an Italian large-family association. Her son Antonio, as a teenager, set aside his Harry Potter book collection and replaced reading with endless scrolling.
Now 20, he struggles to read deeply — something he attributes to social media algorithms that he says robbed him of his ability to concentrate. “From the moment he picked up a phone at 16, the books gradually started disappearing. Within a few years, he stopped reading altogether,” says Valentina Muraglia.
The WHO’s warning and the medical studies
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that problematic social media use — characterized by addictive behavior — is on the rise among teenagers and is linked to poorer physical and mental well-being, poor sleep quality, and broader health problems.
Studies published in the American medical journal JAMA Pediatrics point to measurable differences in brain development between heavy social media users, particularly teenagers whose brains are still maturing.
The Italian lawsuit argues that social media platforms use reward mechanisms — modeled on the logic of slot machines — to cultivate addiction by repeatedly triggering dopamine release, the brain neurotransmitter widely known as the “reward hormone” because it drives people to repeat actions that bring them pleasure or gratification. “Every ‘like’ or notification triggers a dopamine release, ‘hooking’ users to the platform in a way that resembles addiction,” explained Tonino Cantelmi, an advisor to one of the plaintiffs and director of a postgraduate specialization program in Cognitive-Interpersonal Psychotherapy in Rome.
The families involved in the collective lawsuit claim that EEG scans of social media users show activity in brain regions associated with addiction.
When asked about the scientific evidence on addiction presented to the court, representatives from both Meta and TikTok declined to comment on the case, reiterating their previous statements regarding their companies’ approach to mental health.
Some psychologists urge caution against drawing hasty conclusions about the effects of social media on teenagers. “The healthiest approach when dealing with adolescents is to accept that we are unprepared,” said Federico Tonioni, head of the Web Psychopathology Centre at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
He added that he cannot conclude that his patients would have suffered less in a world without social media, and cautioned against an over-reliance on parental controls. “If there is something dangerous, it is controlling children. Young people need to be heard. Control is not a healthy form of presence. The healthiest distance is trust.”
Irene Roggero Ugues says she joined the collective lawsuit to ensure that other parents are made aware of the dangers she herself was never informed of — until it was too late to save Rossella. “We underestimated specific risks and didn’t know they existed, but others can still act. There’s no point in keeping this to myself, and I don’t think Rossella would have minded,” she said.
