Instagram reportedly created hats for its employees emblazoned with the phrase “attorney-client privilege,” which has sparked outrage as critics see it as a distasteful joke about using legal loopholes to hide sensitive documents relating to children’s social media addiction.
This controversy arose after a photo of the caps—baseball hats featuring the abbreviation “a/c priv”—was released during a California federal court hearing. Here, a group of school districts is suing Meta, claiming it is contributing to a mental health crisis among teenagers.
The hats were made to celebrate the upcoming launch of Instagram’s Teen Accounts, referred to internally as “Project Nido,” an attempt to tackle safety concerns related to issues like eating disorders, depression, and teen suicides.
According to court documents that were unsealed recently, a Meta employee shared on September 9, 2024, that the Instagram legal team had approved the design of these hats.
This indicates that the company’s lawyers endorsed merchandise that made light of Meta’s frequent reliance on “attorney-client privilege” to withhold court documents, as claimed by the plaintiffs.
“Perhaps nothing illustrates the culture of privilege abuse at Meta better than this swag purchased by the Teen Accounts team, aka ‘Project Nido,’” the plaintiffs remarked in a filing.
They also noted that even the decision to produce these hats was cleared by Instagram’s legal team.
Interestingly, some employees appeared uneasy about potential identification linked to the hats. On September 6, 2024, one unnamed employee inquired whether there was any marking of Meta or Instagram on the hats, seemingly wary of being recognized in public.
It remains unclear whether the hats were ever given out to employees, and Meta has chosen not to comment on the matter.
Critics argue that the existence of these caps highlights a troubling culture at Mark Zuckerberg’s company, suggesting that it prioritizes covering up safety violations over genuinely addressing them.
Ashwin Verghese, the communications director at online safety organization Fairplay, stated, “It’s utterly sick that anyone would joke about violating kids’ online safety, especially at a company whose actions have already caused considerable harm to countless children.” He added that it’s important for parents and policymakers to see how Meta operates.
Such revelations may bolster claims made by whistleblowers, including ex-Facebook employee Frances Haugen, who has accused Meta of hiding internal documents that acknowledged the mental health crisis spurred by social media.
Releasing these records is considered vital for understanding Meta’s approach to child safety. For example, in a recent case in New Mexico, it was found that an internal researcher had alerted executives about the potential for 500,000 daily incidents of online sexual exploitation on their platforms.
Further records from California indicated that Meta researchers likened Instagram to a “drug” and described the company as “basically pushers.”
This off-color humor reportedly reflects an indifferent attitude toward child safety within Meta, according to Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, who criticized the company’s duality of public statements versus private behaviors related to safety.
Attorneys for the school districts have highlighted these documents as evidence that Meta has been overly aggressive in categorizing important records as protected under attorney-client privilege.
During a hearing on Tuesday, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers agreed with the plaintiffs, allowing them to select 300 documents that Meta labeled as “privileged” to determine their appropriate classification, as reported.
Meta is required to provide these unsealed documents to the plaintiffs by October 7.
The plaintiffs are also requesting the appointment of a “special master” to oversee the evaluation of privileged documents after Judge Rogers previously characterized one of Meta’s attempts to redact records as “entirely inappropriate.”
No ruling has been made on this request yet.
In May, Meta settled with the Breathitt County School District in Kentucky to avoid trial, although lawsuits filed by around 1,200 other districts are still advancing within California’s court system, all alleging similar claims against Meta regarding its impact on kids and social media.
Separately, in August, Meta reached an $18 billion settlement with 48 state attorneys general, agreeing to implement changes like daily usage limits for teens, though some critics assert that the settlement conditions are insufficient, particularly as certain terms are contingent on rival platforms like YouTube and TikTok adopting similar changes.
