Meta is accused of halting internal research into the negative effects of Facebook and Instagram after findings showed the platforms harmed users’ mental health.
A claim filed in a class action lawsuit by US school districts against Meta and other social media platforms, including Google, TikTok, and Snapchat, argues that the companies have intentionally hidden the known information about the risk of their products. The lawsuit was filed by Motley Rice on behalf of school districts across the country.
Where are these allegations coming from? They’re tied to Meta’s own research project, coded Project Mercury, which investigated the effect of “deactivating” Facebook and Instagram in collaboration with survey firm Nielsen.
The internal documents from Meta showed that “people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and social comparison,” according to Reuters.
But Meta didn’t publish the results – rather, it halted the project and said that the findings were tainted by the “existing media narrative” around it, the filing states.
Despite that, privately, internal staff assured Nick Clegg, Meta’s then-head of global public policy, that the findings from Project Mercury were actually valid.
One staff researcher wrote that the Nielsen study does show a causal impact on social comparison. In turn, a different staffer compared hiding the results to the tobacco industry “doing research and knowing cigs were bad and then keeping that info to themselves.”
Meta told Congress that it was not able to quantify whether its products were harmful to teenage girls, even though the company was allegedly aware of a causal link between Facebook/Instagram and negative mental health effects.
In response, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said that the study was stopped due to a flawed methodology, with the company continuously working on improving product safety.
“The full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens,” he said.
Other allegations against Meta and other social media companies include implicitly encouraging children under 13 to use their platforms, failing to adequately address child sexual abuse material, and pushing for expanded use of their products among teens in schools. Additionally, plaintiffs claimed that the platforms tried paying child-focused organizations to publicly defend the safety of their products.
A hearing is scheduled for January 26th, but as of now, Stone disputed the allegations, saying: "We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions.”
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