Meta Executives Met to ‘Get the Academic Community to Disavow’ Jonathan Haidt

Cailin O’Connor, professor at the University of California Irvine: Yesterday saw reporting on new, internal Meta documents released through the ongoing lawsuit. Meta had been using a favored industry strategy of including their attorneys on any risky internal correspondence so that this correspondence would be protected by attorney-client privilege. The judge called bullshit. The resulting documents reveal: Explicit plans by Meta to discredit psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has been raising alarms about social media and youth mental health. Candice Odgers, also a professor at the University of California Irvine: This is why I cannot believe that I have to write this post. Today the London Times wrote an article lazily suggesting that I, and others, were paid by Meta to critique the arguments made by Jonathon Haidt in the Anxious Generation. So let me say this next part very clearly. I have never been approached by Meta to shape what I say publicly about the research on adolescents…