Internal strategy to discredit academic
Court documents from litigation brought by school districts suing the company reveal Meta staff discussed a "whisper strategy" to undermine social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Meeting minutes from 8 March 2023, titled "Well-being Meeting Sound-check Notes," contain discussions on how to "get the academic community to disavow Haidt" through a "below-the-line campaign" instead of a loud strategy. The notes also state that Curtiss Cobb, Meta’s then vice-president of research, wanted to find ways to "enrage" the academic community so that "the media finds him not credible." Staff in the meeting suggested they could not co-opt the academic community, so they sought ways to "enrage them" instead. The plan also includes "debunking" his work and getting a person called "Gellman" to write a "takedown piece" about the academic’s research. Gelman wrote in a blog post this week that he was "never hired by Facebook to do a hit job on Jonathan Haidt." Although Gelman received money from Mark Zuckerberg’s company on a "no-strings" basis in the past, he stated that Meta never asked him to look at how social media impacts the health of teenagers.
Haidt’s influence and reaction
The revealed plans target Haidt because his influential book, The Anxious Generation, argues that widespread smartphone use caused a mental health crisis for young people. His work helped tip the global debate about online safety towards more stringent measures, such as the under-16 ban in Australia. The book also prompted UK health secretary Wes Streeting to ask Haidt to address officials regarding possible social media bans for children under 16. Haidt advocates for strict regulation of digital media and devices, including bans on smartphones in schools. Haidt told the tech news website The Verge that he was "not surprised" by the discussions found in the legal filing. "When companies can’t dispute the evidence, they go after the messenger," Haidt said. These internal discussions occurred before Haidt published his book in 2024 and focused on a Substack post in which the academic reviewed "a bunch of articles" concerning the impact of digital devices. It is unclear whether Meta employees actually acted on the ideas in the meeting minutes.
