When B.C. teenager Amanda Todd sat in front of her computer and detailed the relentless bullying and extortion she'd faced on social media, it sent a shock wave to parents around the world.

The lawsuit was filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court earlier this month on behalf of 11 families — two of whom are Canadian — who say their children suffered physical and mental harms because of social media platforms. It alleges that some of the world’s largest technology companies knowingly designed and marketed defective products to kids in order to boost engagement numbers.

Some kids took their lives after they were targeted by strangers in sextortion, where a person threatens to expose sexually compromising information or images. Others developed eating disorders, depression and had to be hospitalized.

The lawsuit names tech juggernauts Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — along with Snapchat, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, Discord and Google, which owns YouTube.