A federal court ruled that Facebook parent Meta can’t use attorney-client privilege to block internal documents and research related to teen harm, Bloomberg Law reported. The decision is a setback to Meta in its lawsuits against multiple states that accused the company of making its platforms addictive despite knowing they were harmful to teenagers.
Judge Yvonne Williams of the Washington, DC Superior Court found that Meta’s lawyers advised employees to “remove,” “block,” “button up” or “limit” portions of internal studies on the harm of social media to teens’ mental health, in order to limit the company’s legal liability. The court said that this advice appeared to be an attempt to cover up or alter information, meaning it falls under the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. Meta now has seven days to turn over four documents created between November 2022 and July 2023.
Meta disagreed with the ruling, a spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement. “These were routine, appropriate lawyer-client discussions and contrary to the District’s misleading claim, no research findings were deleted or destroyed.”
The ruling is related to lawsuits filed in a California court involving dozens of US state attorneys general. Also involved are hundreds of private civil lawsuits filed by parents, teens and school boards against Meta and other platforms around social media addiction and harms. The first trials are scheduled to start in 2026.
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