Meta allegedly plotted to discredit the professor who warned social media was hurting teens. Now it's paying up to $18B

A “Haidt assignment” is referred to in the unsealed documents: “Curtiss’ goal for this work: how do we get the academic community to disavow Haidt.” As the New York Post reported, Curtiss may be a reference to Meta’s research chief Curtiss Cobb.

Documents reference a ‘whisper strategy’

Meta has faced lawsuits since 2022 alleging mental health harms in youth, with federal cases against the company centralized in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Several bellwether cases are making their way through the court, while a settlement was reached in August between Meta and 52 attorneys general on teen mental health, with Meta agreeing to pay up to $18.5 billion.

An SEC filing from Meta in September notes that the damages sought in the cases it is facing on youth mental health allegations ”range widely in amount, and have at times in certain cases amounted to more than a trillion dollars.”

The court documents that reference Haidt, appear to be from 2023 and analyze how the academic community could be influenced to turn against Haidt: “Can’t co-opt them, so how do we enrage them” the documents read.

“Curtiss [...] Thinks we need to focus on the media. So the media finds him not credible.”

The documents additionally suggest that the strategy would involve many departments across the company: “Need to align across Policy, Comms, and Legal about who the right audience is.”

Someone named “Gellman” could “write a take-down piece,” the court documents also said.

Several references are made to this apparent strategy against Haidt being covert; variously it is called a “below-the-line campaign,” “a bracketing,” and a “whisper strategy.”

The plan outlined in the documents to “turn other academics against Haidt,” appears to be part of the Meta staffers’ larger plans to influence public opinion; under a heading that reads “Strategic paths” is the bulletpoint: “Media and academic elite facing strategy, have that percolate into the media.”

‘Damning’ revelations

Speaking to the New York Post, Haidt said that he was “not surprised” by the revelations in the court documents.

“It’s a company seemingly determined to keep the truth from coming out, even within its own walls,” he said. “But the most damning revelation is the lengths that Meta was willing to go to manipulate the scientific process and the scientific community.”

“They discussed using a ‘whisper strategy’ to turn my colleagues against me. They strategized about how to ‘enrage’ other researchers,” Haidt said. “If social manipulation was the heart of their strategy for responding to my writing, that is strong evidence that they had no way to rebut my research.”

The New York Post noted that it is unclear whether Meta ever went through with the apparent plan.