🤯 Facebook’s Dark Secret: Mental Health Crisis? 💔

Tech & Science

A court filing alleges that Meta intentionally buried internal research demonstrating that deactivating its products, particularly Facebook, lessened symptoms of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. The suit, filed by multiple U.S. school districts and reported by Reuters, accuses Meta of concealing knowledge of these mental health risks. The company reportedly suspended its internal research project, “Project Mercury,” initiated in 2020, which investigated the impact of deactivating Facebook using survey firm Nielsen. Internal research staffers, according to the filings, clearly identified the Nielsen study’s findings as demonstrating a “causal impact on social comparison.” One staffer likened the situation to the tobacco industry’s historical practice of conducting research on harmful products and then suppressing that information. The allegations suggest Meta chose to disregard the research findings, citing a “existing media narrative” surrounding the company, and thus did not publish the results.

Shell and ExxonMobil were among the well-known companies that buried internal research dating back to the 1980s connecting fossil fuels with catastrophic climate change, according to Reuters reporting. These filings revealed that internal research staff explicitly acknowledged the validity of the findings, noting, for example, “the Nielsen study does show causal impact on social comparison.” One internal document drew a parallel to the tobacco industry, observing how researchers “did research and knew cigs were bad and then keeping that info to themselves.” Meanwhile, Malaysia has joined a growing number of nations—including Denmark and Australia—in implementing a plan to ban social media access for users under the age of 18.