Instagram allegedly made hats for its employees with the phrase “attorney-client privilege” – an “utterly sick” joke about using legal loopholes to conceal explosive legal documents about kids social media addiction, according to critics.
A photo of the company’s “swag” hats – baseball caps that displayed the legal lingo “a/c priv,” shorthand for “attorney-client privilege” — surfaced this week in California federal court, where a coalition of school districts have accused Meta of fueling a teen mental health crisis.
The hats were printed up to celebrate the 2024 launch of Instagram’s Teen Accounts, known internally as “Project Nido,” a bid to address kids safety concerns that have included eating disorders, depression and teen suicide.
In an internal chat on Sept. 9, 2024, a Meta employee informed Naomi Gleit, the company’s head of product, that Instagram’s legal team had “reviewed and are OK with the Nido Swag,” according to court documents that were unsealed on Monday.
That shows that the company’s lawyers signed off on merchandise that intentionally made light of Meta’s reliance on “attorney/client privilege” to redact court documents, plaintiffs alleged.
“Perhaps nothing better illustrates the culture of privilege abuse at Meta than the swag purchased by members of the Teen Accounts team, aka “Project Nido,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said in a court filing.
“Notably even that decision was reviewed and signed off on by Instagram legal,” the plaintiffs added.
Some skittish employees apparently weren’t convinced by their counsel’s assurances. On Sept. 6, 2024, an employee whose name was redacted asked, “is there any meta or IG logo on the hat anywhere?” – seeemingly concerned about being identified in public.
It’s unclear if the hats were ever actually distributed to employees, and Meta declined to comment.
Critics say the baseball caps are proof that Mark Zuckerberg’s firm has a twisted “culture” that’s more interested in covering up safety violations than addressing them.
“It’s utterly sick that anyone would joke about violating kids’ online safety, let alone employees of a company that has already caused irreparable harm to countless children,” said Ashwin Verghese, communications director at online safety watchdog Fairplay.
“There is nothing funny about the damage Meta has done to kids’ lives,” Verghese added. “It’s good these revelations are coming out, though, so parents and policymakers know exactly how this company operates.”
The documents could fuel claims by whistleblowers including former Facebook employee Frances Haugen who have long accused Meta of concealing internal documents and research which showed that were aware that social media apps were causing a teen mental health crisis.
Critics say releasing these records is critical to understanding Meta’s response to child safety. For example, documents from New Mexico’s successful case against Meta revealed a researcher warned executives there could be as many as 500,000 cases of online sexual exploitation per day on its apps.
Meanwhile, records from California court showed the company’s own researchers compared Instagram to a “drug” and said they were “basically pushers.”
The off-color joke behind closed doors is just the latest sign that Meta isn’t serious about protecting children who use its apps, according to Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the watchdog group Tech Oversight Project.
“It speaks volumes that Meta’s senior-most executives pay lip service to safety in public, while mocking it in private and abusing attorney-client privilege to conceal documents from Congress,” Haworth told The Post in a statement. “We need to protect every child on every platform, and we need to force Big Tech to clean up its act for good.”
Attorneys for the school districts cited the documents while arguing that Meta has been too aggressive in labeling important company records as protected by attorney-client privilege.
US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sided with the plaintiffs on a court hearing on Tuesday, ruling that the plaintiffs could pick 300 of the “most important” documents that Meta had labeled as “privileged” to determine if they were properly classified, Law360 reported.
Meta will be required to turn over any documents that were unsealed as part of that review to the plaintiffs by Oct. 7.
The plaintiffs also asked the judge to appoint a “special master” to oversee the review of privileged documents, arguing that Rogers herself described one of Meta’s attempts to redact records as “entirely inappropriate” during court hearings earlier this year.
Gonzalez Rogers has yet to rule on that proposal.
In May, Meta reached a settlement with Breathitt County School District in Kentucky to avoid a trial that had been slated to begin in Oakland on June 15.
At the time, attorneys for the plaintiffs noted that pending lawsuit for the “remaining 1,200 school districts” suing Meta were still moving forward. The school districts, which all make similar claims accusing Meta of fueling social media addiction and online harm to kids, are suing as part of consolidated court proceedings in California.
Meanwhile, Meta reached a separate $18 billion settlement with a coalition of 48 state attorneys general In August. As part of that settlement, the company agreed to impose changes such as daily usage limits for teens.
Some critics have argued that the terms of the settlement don’t go far enough – and have pointed to the fact that a portion of the money Meta agreed to pay will be unlocked only if its rivals YouTube and TikTok agree to make similar changes to their apps.
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