Elon Musk calls allegations against Meta ‘terrible’ as lawsuit claims child safety failures

Elon Musk

Elon Musk has reacted to growing scrutiny of Meta Platforms after newly surfaced court filings alleged that the company knowingly failed to protect young users from harmful content and online predators.

The controversy escalated after The Times shared a report stating that Meta had internal evidence showing “millions of adult strangers” attempting to contact minors across its platforms but very rarely intervened. Musk responded on his own platform X, formerly Twitter, using a single word - “Terrible.”

The claims form part of a sweeping class-action lawsuit filed by the law firm Motley Rice on behalf of school districts across the United States. The suit also names Google, TikTok and Snapchat and accuses major social media companies of fuelling youth addiction and ignoring the mental health impact of their platforms.

According to a Reuters report summarising the sealed filings, Meta executives allegedly stalled years of internal proposals designed to strengthen protections for minors. The filings suggest that the company intentionally made safety tools ineffective or difficult to use because stronger enforcement could slow platform growth.

Internal documents also reportedly showed that Meta continued adjusting algorithms to keep teens engaged, even after teams warned that such changes exposed young users to more content related to eating disorders, suicide and sexual exploitation.

One section of the documents cited by Reuters refers to a minimum enforcement rule under which a user allegedly had to be flagged around 17 times for sex trafficking-related activity before being permanently removed. The filings described the threshold as extraordinarily high and out of step with the severity of the behaviour.

The lawsuit also points to internal conversations involving Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In a reported 2021 text message, Zuckerberg allegedly wrote that protecting minors was not his top priority at the time because he was focused on building “the metaverse.”

The filings further claim that former global public policy chief Nick Clegg repeatedly pushed for additional investment in child safety, but those requests were either ignored or deprioritised.

Another significant detail comes from an internal research initiative known as “Project Mercury,” conducted in collaboration with Nielsen in 2020. The study reportedly found that users who deactivated Facebook for a week experienced reduced levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness and social comparison. Instead of releasing the findings or expanding the research, the project was quietly scrapped, according to the filings, and internally dismissed as being influenced by “negative media narratives.” One staff member allegedly compared the situation to the tobacco industry concealing evidence that cigarettes cause harm.

Despite the allegations, Meta denies wrongdoing. Company spokesperson Andy Stone issued a statement arguing that the lawsuit relies on misleading interpretations and selective excerpts from private conversations.

Stone defended Meta’s record, stating: “The full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens.”

He added that the company discontinued Project Mercury because its methodology was flawed and insisted that Meta already removes accounts involved in child trafficking as soon as they are identified.

“We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions,” he said.

The internal documents forming the basis of the lawsuit are not yet public. Meta has filed a motion asking the court to strike the material from the record, and a hearing on that request is scheduled for January 26 in the U.S. District Court for Northern California.

Google, Snapchat and TikTok, also named in the lawsuit, have not issued public comments, according to Reuters.