Meta workforce ordered ‘attorney/client privilege’ hats during fighting kid safety disclosures

Lawyers suing Meta called the hats an example of its ‘culture of privilege abuse.’

Meta’s lawyers have asserted that certain evidence have to be withheld from community perspective on the evidence of attorney-client privilege in the ongoing lawsuits over alleged damage to teens’ safety and mental health. Lawyers suing the business stated this week that the tag has been applied far too broadly, during pointing to a lately unsealed document showing that the squad rearward launching Instagram’s Teen Accounts in 2024 put in an command for ballgame caps that merely stated “a/c priv.”

The lawyers suing Meta argue the Project Nido (an inner name for the Teen Accounts team) swag is part of “culture of privilege abuse at Meta” aimed at keeping the investigation it’s conducted internally on adolescent damage out of the community eye, an matter that Mark Zuckerberg discussed following inner data on Instagram’s effects leaked in 2021.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers already called several of Meta’s privilege redactions “entirely inappropriate” in an command final month.

She pointed out one example anywhere Meta’s lawyers tried to mold a conversation concerning a glide phase and whether or not to publish certain data as a conversation of attorney lawful advice, deciding that according to evidence from the trial, their reticence concerning publishing was additional of a endeavor decision focused on preventing leaks.

Meta de-designated concerning 65,000 earlier withheld or redacted documents in April 2025, following discovery, which the plaintiffs say came too delayed for them to use in depositions. Now Meta has requested period through the end of this twelvemonth to re-review another privilege redactions it’s made, during the plaintiffs’ lawyers say a neutral gathering have to be appointed to guide the review, paid for by Meta.