IBERIA PARISH — It's been almost six years since Brandy and Toney Roberts lost their daughter, Englyn, the baby of a family of eight.
"And since losing her, we're left with emptiness. We are left with many, many questions of how this could happen to us. We never thought it would happen to us, losing a daughter by suicide," Toney Roberts said.
The legal battle started a few years back when whistleblower Frances Haugen testified against Meta about Mark Zuckerberg's disregard of research on how Meta's apps, particularly features like the beauty filter and content centered around self-harm and eating disorders, were affecting kids and teens.
"18 out of 18 of his own outside researchers that Meta hired to inform them of the effects of Instagram and what they were doing and what harm it was causing, he still went against his own researchers and proceeded with exposing children all over the world to these harmful features that they built," Roberts said.
For Brandy and Toney, even though their advocacy sometimes forces them to relive that night, it is their mission to help other families like theirs.
"And on behalf of Englyn, a caring, loving little girl, she always wanted to help, so we are doing that in her memory, trying to help other families to not go through this lifelong journey of grief that we go through. And some of the comments, sometimes parents say, 'Well, what about the parents? Where were they?' We were right here. We're still right here," Roberts said.
