Meta is being sued for concealing "causal" evidence of the harm social media poses to mental health.

PANews, November 23 news, according to Zhito Finance reports, in the collective lawsuit filed by multiple school districts in the United States against Meta and other social media platforms, the disclosed complete lawsuit documents show that the company halted related internal research after discovering causal evidence that its products Facebook and Instagram had adverse effects on users' mental health. Internal documents obtained through investigation show that in 2020, during a research project codenamed “Project Mercury,” Meta's researchers collaborated with Nielsen Research Company to assess the impact of disabling Facebook and Instagram. The internal documents indicate that the results were quite unsatisfactory for the company: “Users who disabled Facebook for a week reported a reduction in their depression, anxiety, feelings of loneliness, and social comparison mentality.” The lawsuit documents state that although Meta's own research has confirmed a causal link between its products and negative impacts on users' mental health, the company claimed to the U.S. Congress that it could not quantify whether its products could harm teenage girls.