Meta employees compared Instagram to drugs and called themselves pushers while the company buried research showing its platforms harm children’s mental health, according to court documents released Friday. The revelations emerged from a 235-page legal brief filed in federal court as part of a lawsuit by more than 1,800 plaintiffs against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and Google, alleging that the companies knowingly designed addictive products that harm young users.
In internal company chats, one Meta employee wrote, “Oh my gosh y’all IG is a drug,” according to the court filing. Another employee responded, “We’re basically pushers.” The casual comparison revealed deep awareness within the company that they were exploiting vulnerable young users, plaintiffs allege.
The case centers on Project Mercury, a 2020 internal study in which Meta partnered with the research firm Nielsen to examine what happened when users stopped accessing Facebook and Instagram. The results were clear: people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison. Instead of publishing these findings or conducting additional research, Meta shut down the project.
Company executives dismissed the results by claiming negative media narratives distorted them. However, internal communications show researchers confirmed to Nick Clegg, then Meta’s global head of public policy, that the study demonstrated a genuine causal link. One researcher shared the validation with a frowning emoji, showing disappointment that the company was burying evidence of harm.
The lawsuit claims Meta lied to Congress about what it knew. Plaintiffs say the company told lawmakers in December 2020 that it had no way to determine whether Instagram harmed teenage girls, despite research showing exactly that. One Meta employee even questioned whether suppressing the study results would make the company look like tobacco manufacturers who hid evidence that cigarettes caused health damage.
The documents also exposed serious safety failures. Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Instagram’s former head of safety, testified she was shocked upon joining Meta in 2020 to discover the company maintained a 17-strike policy for sex trafficking accounts. Accounts could receive 16 violations before facing suspension on the 17th. Jayakumar stated, “By any measure across the industry, [that] is a very, very high strike threshold.” She also testified that Instagram failed to provide a simple way to report child sexual abuse material, despite offering easy reporting for less serious violations like spam.
The filing further alleges that Instagram chief Adam Mosseri resisted hearing about internal research showing how the platform creates addictive dopamine responses in young users. When researchers attempted to present these findings, Mosseri reportedly became upset and rejected the information.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone strongly disputed the allegations, calling them misleading. Stone explained that Project Mercury was discontinued because the study design failed to account for expectancy effects, in which participants’ preexisting beliefs influenced their responses. Stone argued the study merely found that people who already believed Facebook was bad for them felt better when they stopped using it.
The company emphasized that it has spent over a decade researching teen safety and implementing protections. Meta pointed to safety initiatives launched in 2024, including Instagram Teen Accounts that automatically set privacy controls for users ages 13 to 18. These accounts default to private, restrict sensitive content, disable nighttime notifications, and prevent messaging from unconnected adults.
At a Senate hearing in January 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel apologized to parents who described how social media harmed their children.
The lawsuit also targets other social media giants. Internal TikTok reports noted that minors lack the executive mental function to control their screen time. Snapchat executives acknowledged that users with Snapchat addiction have no room for anything else in their lives. YouTube staff stated that driving increased daily usage conflicted with efforts to improve digital well-being.
Representatives for TikTok and Snap said the filing paints a misleading picture of their safety work. A Google spokesperson called the lawsuit’s characterization of YouTube fundamentally flawed, noting the platform functions as a streaming service and has developed family-focused control tools.
The four companies are seeking dismissal, arguing that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields them from liability over user content. A separate consolidated lawsuit in Southern California is scheduled for trial in January. The legal battles represent a pivotal moment in holding tech giants accountable for platform design choices that allegedly promote addictive use among vulnerable young users.