Researcher: internal Meta documents show plans to shape youth mental health science

What happened

• The researcher says reporting on new internal Meta documents emerged through an ongoing lawsuit, after a judge rejected the company's practice of copying attorneys on risky internal correspondence to shield it under attorney-client privilege.
• According to the researcher's account of the documents, they include explicit plans by Meta to discredit psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has raised alarms about social media and youth mental health.
• The researcher says internal Meta researchers expressed frustration that company lawyers were blocking studies on youth mental health and their platforms, with one quoted question asking whether legal would approve a study if it only covered social support or positive outcomes.
• The documents reportedly describe plans to work with the National Academies of Sciences on social media and youth mental health, aiming to "get credit" for proposing the assessment and to "greatly shape" the questions explored.
• The researcher says the documents include alternative plans to work with another group if Meta cannot adequately influence NAS research, and to "ensure product feature evaluations are excluded."
• The researcher says the documents discuss which study questions are most likely to benefit the company.
• The researcher and collaborators previously posted preprint research arguing tech companies appear to be running a tobacco-style playbook on social media science, and an analysis finding at least half of high-profile social media research had disclosable ties to tech companies, many undisclosed.

Why it matters

If accurate, the reported documents would indicate that a major platform sought to influence the framing and scope of youth mental health research rather than only fund it.

What is unknown

The documents are described through the researcher's account of press reporting; the underlying materials were not reviewed here, and Meta's response is not included. The researcher's preprint and ties analysis are not described as peer-reviewed, and the causal link between social media use and youth mental health remains contested. The researcher says plaintiffs are still seeking thousands more documents.