Meta Lawyers Advised Blocking Teen Harm Research to Avoid Suits

Meta Platforms Inc.'s lawyers advised employees to block or remove portions of internal research on teen mental health harm in order to reduce legal liability, a Washington, DC, court determined Thursday in a ruling that could ripple into the multi-district litigation faced by the tech company in California.

Judge Yvonne Williams ruled that Meta can’t use attorney client privilege to block the DC attorney general from using Meta’s internal documents in the District’s suit over teen mental health harms.

Williams, ruling for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, found the communication in the documents falls under the crime-fraud exception to attorney client privilege because Meta sought legal advice to obfuscate potential liability or engage in fraud.

“The Court notes that Meta’s counsel explicitly advised Meta researchers to ‘remove,’ ‘block, ‘button up,’ ‘limit,’ and ‘update’ their research,” Williams said. “Meta’s counsel offered such legal advice to specifically limit Meta’s potential liability.”

A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with the court’s ruling. “These were routine, appropriate lawyer-client discussions, and contrary to the District’s misleading claim, no research findings were deleted or destroyed,” the company said in a statement.

Williams said Meta must produce the four documents in question, dated between November 2022 and July 2023, within seven days of her ruling.

Meta’s counsel provided the advice to researchers in reference to a sweeping multidistrict litigation in California federal court, where Meta faces a teen addiction and mental health lawsuit from dozens of state attorneys general, including Washington, DC.

The same case also involves hundreds of private civil lawsuits against Meta and other social media platforms from teens, parents, and school districts affected by the harms of social media addiction. The first trials are slated to start next year.

The DC attorney general initiated his own lawsuit against Meta in the district’s superior court, alleging violations of the district’s consumer protection act. Meta started producing documents to the district last year as part of the discovery process.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation submitted Williams’ ruling to the California court.

Williams’ ruling said the documents contain communication between Meta researchers relaying and discussing company counsel’s advice to removing or redesigning research.

“The communications in the Documents speak for themselves,” Williams said. “Following the initiation of the related multidistrict litigation, Meta’s counsel informed Meta’s researchers to amend their research to limit Meta’s potential liability.”

The case is District of Columbia v. Meta Platforms Inc., D.C. Super. Ct., No. 2023 CAB 006550, 10/23/25.