Meta & Children's Online SafetyPLAINTIFFS’ CHARACTERIZATION
An internal document showed that Meta knew its recommendation algorithms "create an echo chamber" of suicide and self-harm content.
Unnamed employee, as quoted by plaintiffs
Knowledge
Evidence home · Recorded themes · All evidence
Published evidence
Suicide & self-injury
Excerpts with this recorded theme.
57 published excerpts. Page 2 of 3.
"[P]eople who are suffering from depression and self-harm go down IG rabbit holes, and explore functionality compounds this issue."
████: "In terms of SSI risk if we were to do this, we do have a non-rec SSI filter in place on Explore today targeting depiction. …
Karina Newton and names withheld in filing
Knowledge
Investment in teen-specific Problematic Use was "Mid-Low," teen-specific SSI was "Low-Mid," and eating disorders was "Low"
Unnamed employee
Profits over Safety
41% of US teenagers and 43% of UK teenagers said the feeling that they weren't attractive started on Instagram. 6% of US teenagers and 13% of UK teenagers said that the desire to kill themselves started on Instagram.
The perfect image, feeling attractive, and having enough money are the most likely to have started on Instagram" …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"Content about SSI makes teens feel the worst"
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
Social comparison, body image, loneliness, SSI, and problematic use were the top categories of harm reported by teens on Instagram
We ranked issues by each category (reach, intensity, IG impact and expectation), to generate a composite average rank such that lower average indicates that the issue should be …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"There's going to be SSI content on IG and FB for the near future. The existing classifiers are not hard to game."
Karina Newton: "ps: i find it to be a very weird world we're living in where fb leadership is making threshold decisions of ig hashtags?" …
Karina Newton · Max Eulenstein and names withheld in filing
Knowledge
"So you've known about this all this time and you still haven't fixed it" — SSI focus group takeaways
My biggest take away from last night was the change over time piece. It absolutely confounded them that we could be working on an issue so long, yet we are where we are. …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"Model for how social media usage may be linked to suicide/self-harm"
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"[T]here are forces that use Hashtags in a harmful way and we do not have a consistent, well-socialized way to approach Integrity challenges on Hashtags."
Hashtags are built by the community and the community has a voice. If we start filtering media which is non-rec, we are suppressing voice. …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"~12%** of content potentially may be 'age inappropriate' for teens but not covered by current policies."
Teens experience harm at higher levels than non-teens" "1. …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"Are we comfortable launching private-by-default for teens with the identified retention and engagement drops?"
Unnamed employee
Profits over Safety
"SSI, terrorism, and seeing someone being bullied or harassed are particularly problematic, with high reach for how intense they are."
Overall, teens have significantly more negative experiences than adults. …
Unnamed employee
KnowledgeYouth Targeting
"This lack of connection between what we commit to publicly and what we do internally really worried, and slightly shocked, me."
Molly Cutler: "On January 22, the BBC reported that exposure to graphic images of cutting and self-injury on Instagram contributed to the suicide of 14-year-old Molly Russell. …
Molly Cutler · Nick Clegg
ConcealmentProfits over Safety
"We don't have a clear understanding about who reaches out for help on Instagram, the effects of posting (or not posting) on subsequent real world behavior, or the effects of seeing SSI content on viewers. We also don't understand the barriers that people face when seeking or receiving help from others on IG."
From 7/6/18 - 8/6/18: ~16K unique IG users admitted suicidal thoughts or intent and ~21K unique users admitted self-injury. …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"Feed Relevance consistently distributes SSI vpvs to teenagers and nobody has noticed"
████: "Can I please see the Mercury project results? ████ led me to ████ who is... not being responsive." …
Names withheld in filing
KnowledgeConcealment
"[Teens] often feel 'addicted' and know that what they're seeing is bad for their mental health but feel unable to stop themselves."
Wendy Gross: "We recently wrapped research on teens' mental health - how they define it, how they talk about, how Instagram may affect it, and how we can help them. …
Wendy Gross · Kenzie Snyder
Knowledge
"Policymakers and stakeholders see the lack of a consistent, comprehensive approach to problematic use and certain 'harmful content' (e.g., SSI + ED content) across FOA as evidence we prioritize engagement/profits"
Well-being work is similar to privacy or major social issues like Health and COVID19; it needs to be addressed consistently across our platforms and in an end-to-end manner …
Unnamed employee
Profits over Safety
"It struck me that the bottom line is that IG is violating our policies — not users! IG is choosing to display images in a violating way for any policy area where the caption matters. We have to build a system of labeling images as 'caption-dependent' for topics like hate, violence, bullying, SSI so that we can avoid search results."
Monika Bickert: "Yes, the policies are that we allow cries for help (often called admission or ideation) but don't allow celebration or encouragement of self-harm. …
Monika Bickert and names withheld in filing
KnowledgeConcealment
"If these are the right things to do, we should not need an article to push us to do them. We have reviewed our policies and enforcement in areas like this over and over with this in mind - and then we always find more to do. I am really alarmed by this."
Sheryl Sandberg: "If these are the right things to do, we should not need an article to push us to do them. …
Sheryl Sandberg · Guy Rosen
Knowledge
"the way IG displays stuff in search definitely violates our policies"
Guy Rosen: "How are you holding up?" Guy Rosen: "Sorry everything is blowing up :(" …
Guy Rosen · Monika Bickert
ConcealmentKnowledge
"my central concern is that we don't have a simple, human answer to why IG carried harrowing self harm images that no reasonable person think should have appeared, and which seem to serve no self-help purpose whatsoever."
Monika Bickert: "Nick, I just want to set expectations since I see that someone said Content Policy agreed to these changes. …
Monika Bickert · Nick Clegg
ConcealmentKnowledge
"Despite NCMEC's numerous discussions with Meta regarding persistent quality issues and failure to include substantive information in online enticement and child sex trafficking reports submitted to the CyberTipline, Meta has not resolved these issues."
On 11 separate occasions between February and December 2025, NCMEC emailed Meta regarding reports in which a child victim expressed suicidal ideation in a chat log, and Meta …
Unnamed employee
Profits over Safety
"For sensitive research, we can mitigate the risk in two ways: • Be mindful about how we structure the research and communicate the findings • Conduct highly-sensitive research under attorney-client privilege"
What makes research sensitive? Sensitive means research that may have comms, policy, or legal risks" …
Unnamed employee
Concealment