Nov. 24 (UPI) — Meta shelved an internal study linking the use of Facebook to effects on users’ mental health, a brief filed in a California federal court indicates.
The filing, released Friday by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is part of a multi-party lawsuit accusing social media networks such as Facebook, YouTube, SnapChat and TikTok of being aware of and hiding information that their platforms were harmful to the mental health of children and young adults. A group of school districts, parents and state attorneys general brought the lawsuit.
The newly unredacted filing details a 2019 study Meta did in conjunction with Neilsen on its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. Called Project Mercury, Meta’s study sought to “explore the impact that our apps have on polarization, news consumption, well-being and daily social interactions,” said the filing.
A judge ordered the 5,807-page filing to be unsealed in an Oct. 30 order, Politico reported.
Project Mercury evaluated a random sample of users who had stopped using Facebook and Instagram for one month. The lawsuit accused Meta of stopping the research after initial results showed people who halted their use of Facebook “for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and social comparison.”
“The company never publicly disclosed the results of its deactivation study,” the lawsuit says. “Instead, Meta lied to Congress about what it knew.”
The lawsuit also cited an incident in which one Meta employee — whose name wasn’t released — allegedly questioned whether Meta would look like big tobacco companies that suppressed studies about cigarettes being harmful to people’s health.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the study was paused because it was flawed.
“We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture,” he said in a statement to CNBC.
“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 — like introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with controls to manage their teens’ experiences.”
Internal documents that were part of Friday’s release showed other discussions by Meta employees.
Meta senior researcher Shayli Jimenez called Instagram “a drug” in one such communication, but in a deposition she describe the phrasing as “sarcastic.”
Another Meta employee responded: “LOL, I mean, all social media. We’re basically pushers.”