Meta Used Attorney-Client Privilege Hats in Child Safety Lawsuits
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What happened
In California federal court, school districts have sued Meta alleging its apps fueled a teen mental health crisis, and the parties have disputed Meta’s use of attorney-client privilege to withhold internal documents. Unsealed filings showed that in September 2024, as Instagram launched Teen Accounts (internally Project Nido), the team ordered baseball caps reading “a/c priv”; an employee told head of product Naomi Gleit that Instagram’s legal team had “reviewed and are OK with the Nido Swag,” and another asked whether any Meta or Instagram logo appeared on the hat. Plaintiffs’ lawyers called the merchandise an example of a “culture of privilege abuse at Meta.” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers had previously found some of Meta’s privilege redactions “entirely inappropriate,” and after Meta de-designated about 65,000 previously withheld documents in April 2025—too late, plaintiffs said, for depositions—she this week allowed plaintiffs to select 300 of the most important remaining privilege-labeled documents for review, due October 7. Meta has asked to re-review other redactions through year-end, plaintiffs have asked the court to appoint a special master paid by Meta, it is unclear whether the hats were distributed, and Meta declined to comment.
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 2 articles
1 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
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Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Right-leaning coverage never reports how many files Meta already took off the privilege list, so the hats read as a self-contained gag rather than a sideshow in a sprawling discovery fight. Left-leaning coverage says the company de-designated about 65,000 previously withheld documents after discovery. Plaintiffs in that account called the release too late for depositions, and Meta has asked through year's end to re-review other redactions. Without that volume, a reader cannot tell whether the privilege fight is a paperwork spat or a mass withholding.
The same hats are framed as a cover-up on one side and a courtroom fight on the other. Right-leaning coverage says they went to employees who "concealed kids safety docs." Left-leaning coverage describes the company as "fighting child safety disclosures."
How many documents does Meta still call privileged, and how many of those would a court treat as legal advice?
Bottom line
Read the New York Post on the attorney-client hats and you never learn Meta already de-designated 65,000 documents from the same fight.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Meta de-designated about 65,000 previously withheld or redacted documents in April 2025, after discovery, which plaintiffs said came too late for depositions
- An internal Sept. 9, 2024 chat said Instagram legal had reviewed and were OK with the Nido Swag, a decision relayed to head of product Naomi Gleit
- The judge ruled that plaintiffs could pick 300 of the most important documents Meta had labeled privileged, with unsealed files due by Oct. 7
- The judge found Meta had cast a debate over publishing data as legal advice when testimony showed it was a business decision to prevent leaks
- Meta declined to comment, and it is unclear whether the hats were ever distributed
The Left View
The Verge frames the caps as illustrating that Meta applied attorney-client privilege “far too broadly” to keep internal research on teen harm out of public view, an issue Mark Zuckerberg addressed after Instagram data leaked in 2021. Plaintiffs, as quoted there, treat the Project Nido swag as part of a “culture of privilege abuse at Meta,” and the outlet stresses the judge’s finding that some redactions were “entirely inappropriate,” including an attempt to recast a business decision about whether to publish data as a discussion of legal advice. The left-leaning account centers on discovery process: that April 2025 de-designation came too late for depositions, Meta now wants more time to re-review, and plaintiffs argue a neutral party paid by Meta—not the company—should lead that review.
The Right View
The New York Post presents the caps as an “utterly sick” joke about using legal loopholes to conceal documents on kids’ social media addiction, quoting Fairplay’s Ashwin Verghese that it is “utterly sick that anyone would joke about violating kids’ online safety” and Tech Oversight Project’s Sacha Haworth that Meta’s executives “pay lip service to safety in public, while mocking it in private and abusing attorney-client privilege to conceal documents from Congress.” Critics in that coverage treat the swag as proof of a “twisted ‘culture’” more interested in covering up safety problems than addressing them, and link it to whistleblower claims and other records in which company researchers compared Instagram to a “drug,” said they were “basically pushers,” and warned of as many as 500,000 cases of online sexual exploitation per day.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that legally approved “a/c priv” swag, the judge’s “entirely inappropriate” finding, and the late mass de-designation of documents show privilege was stretched as a shield against disclosure of teen-harm research rather than reserved for genuine legal advice. The right’s strongest argument is that the same merchandise, treated as a joke and cleared by counsel, reveals a culture that mocked concealment of child-safety evidence—an interpretation they support with internal comparisons of Instagram to a “drug” and warnings of mass exploitation. The central unresolved tension is whether the hats primarily corroborate overbroad privilege claims that delayed discovery, or primarily expose an internal attitude that treated hiding child-harm material as unserious; the record does not establish whether the caps were distributed or what, if anything, they prove beyond the discovery fight already before the court.
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