Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was warned about his platforms’ harmful effects on children and teens and decided to ‘turn a blind eye,’ new court filings show.
The statements, part of a lawsuit filed in February 2023, were redacted and recently unsealed, showing employees and engineers were aware of issues, Bloomberg reports.
The filing states Zuckerberg was personally warned: ‘We are not on track to succeed for our core well-being topics (problematic use, bullying & harassment, connections, and SSI), and are at increased regulatory risk and external criticism.
‘These affect everyone, especially Youth and Creators; if not addressed, these will follow us into the Metaverse.’
The latest information also reveals Meta defunded its mental health team, while Steve Satterfield, Facebook’s vice president of privacy & public policy, said in court in 2021 that ‘safety and well-being of the teens on our platform is a top priority for the company.’
Redacted statements of a lawsuit filed against Meta shows Mark Zuckerberg was ‘personally’ warned about how Facebook and Instagram were harming children
DailyMail.com has contacted Meta for comment.
A Meta spokesperson told Bloomberg that ‘it defunded work to support people’s well-being is false.’
‘In fact because this so important our company, we actually increased funding, shown by the over 30 tools we offer to support teens and families,’ the spokesperson said.
‘Today, there are hundreds of employees working across the company to build features to this effect.’
The lawsuit, filed in Oakland, cites that over a third of 13- to 17-year-old kids report using one of the Defendants’ apps ‘almost constantly’ and admit this is ‘too much.”
It has been an ongoing suit, first filed by many parents who claim their children have suffered at the hands of Facebook and Instagram.
The latest information also reveals Meta defunded its mental health team
The complaints, later consolidated into several class actions, claimed that Meta’s social media platforms were designed to be dangerously addictive, driving children and teenagers to consume content that increases the risk of sleep disorders, eating disorders, depression and suicide.
The case also states that teens and children are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of social media.
‘No one wakes up thinking they want to maximize the number of times they open Instagram that day,’ one Meta employee wrote in 2021, according to the filing.
‘But that’s exactly what our product teams are trying to do.’
Cecilia Tesch, from Pueblo, claims that her daughter, named ‘RF’ in court papers, got addicted to the social media site age of just seven and that the fixation caused her to develop an eating disorder.
She filed a suit in 2020, along with Oregon resident Brittney Doffing.
Doffing is suing Snap and Meta for allegedly turning her daughter into a violent cell phone addict who has developed an eating disorder and undergone multiple psychiatric admissions in the past couple of years.
