Meta buried 'causal' evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege
Meta's halted 2019 study found users who deactivated Facebook and Instagram reported lower depression and anxiety, but the findings were never publicly disclosed, court filings show.
- On Friday, a court filing alleges Meta Platforms Inc. halted Project Mercury after tests showed reduced depression and anxiety among users who stopped using Facebook, which began in late 2019 to explore app impacts.
- Plaintiffs in a multidistrict suit say school districts, parents and state attorneys general allege Meta Platforms Inc. knew its services harmed children and young adults and lied to Congress.
- Researchers temporarily deactivated accounts for a month in the 2019 randomized deactivation experiment, and initial tests found users who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower depression and anxiety.
- The suit notes Meta Platforms Inc. never publicly released the deactivation-study results, the newly unredacted complaint reveals, while TikTok, Google's YouTube and Snapchat did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
- Meta pushed back, with spokesperson Andy Stone saying, 'We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture' and citing an unnamed Meta employee who warned of appearing like tobacco companies.
69 Articles
69 Articles
Meta employees compared themselves to drug ‘pushers’ as company buried mental health harms to kids: unsealed docs
Meta’s own researchers called Instagram a “drug” while burying evidence that the company’s social media apps were hurting kids’ mental health, according to bombshell filings unsealed in California federal court on Friday.
SCIENCE & TECH: Meta employees compared themselves to drug ‘pushers’ as company buried mental health harms to kids
Meta’s own researchers called Instagram a “drug” while burying evidence that the company’s social media apps were hurting kids’ mental health, according to bombshell filings unsealed in California federal court on Friday. The alarming details surfaced in Northern California District Court, where a coalition of US state attorneys general, school districts and parents are suing Meta, Google-owned YouTube, TikTok and Snap over allegations they prio…
Court Filing: Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Shut Down Internal Research Suggesting Social Media Harms Users
A legal filing released on Friday alleges that Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, halted internal research suggesting that people who stopped using its social media platforms experienced less depression and anxiety.
Meta faces allegations of concealing study linking Facebook to anxiety and depression
New Delhi: Meta allegedly shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users, according to news reports from unredacted filings in a lawsuit by US school districts against Meta and other social media platforms. In a 2020 research project code-named “Project Mercury,” Meta scientists worked with survey firm Nielsen to examine the effect of “deactivating” Facebook. In…
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 42% of the sources lean Right
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
