The harsh words surfaced during a testy Oct. 9 hearing in California federal court, just a couple of weeks after plaintiffs revealed that Instagram had made swag hats for its employees with the phrase “attorney-client privilege” to celebrate the 2024 launch of Instagram’s Teen Accounts.
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Instagram → surface → Accounts
Critics previously lambasted the hats as an “utterly sick” joke about concealing explosive legal documents.
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Critics → lambast → documents
In the case in which the hat swag surfaced, a coalition of school districts have accused Meta of fueling a teen mental health crisis.
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coalition → surface → crisis
“I have never seen a company whose employees are so taken with the attorney-client privilege that they’d have caps made,” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said during the hearing, according to a transcript obtained by The Post.
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Rogers → see → Post
Meta attorney Ashley Simonsen fired back at the judge, asserting that the hats had “nothing to do” with “whether outside counsel properly applied the privilege in this case.”
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counsel → fire → case
Simonsen appeared to have interrupted the judge with her comment, prompting an irked Gonzalez Rogers to reply, “You need to stop talking when I start whether you like it or not.”
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you → appear → it
“A further review is required, period,” the judge added.
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judge → require → ?
In a bizarre twist, Gonzalez Rogers also shot down a request by Meta’s Simonsen to use an AI model to speed up review of the withheld documents – asserting that the court couldn’t trust the model to be reliable without more information.
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court → shoot → information
“I don’t trust AI, obviously, as much as you do,” the judge said.
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judge → trust → AI
“The only way that argument would have any legs is if you trained a model on your own, and obviously all of the training would have to be done and disclosed — all of it — and all of the testing.”
Meta and attorneys for the plaintiffs ultimately agreed to jointly abide by the findings of an independent “special master” — retired US Judge Suzanne Segal, who will review the company’s classifications for some 170,000 documents and determine which were properly withheld and which weren’t.
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which → have → documents
Judge Gonzalez Rodgers approved the process on Wednesday.
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Rodgers → approve → Wednesday
In a joint filing on Monday, Meta agreed to go back over an average of 20,000 documents per week that were initially marked as privileged.
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that → agree → week
It was given until Dec. 30 to complete the process.
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It → give → process
Additionally, each week the special master will review a random sample of 200 documents that Meta claims should remained privileged or redacted.
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Meta → review → documents
She’ll then make a decision on whether the classification is accurate – or if the docs should be turned over to the plaintiffs as requested.
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docs → make → plaintiffs
Any company records that the special master determines should be unredacted must be turned over within five days.
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master → determine → days
Meta also has to cover the cost of the review.
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Meta → have → review
As The Post reported last month, online safety advocates were outraged over Meta’s decision to make the “attorney-client privilege” hats for employees – with one group, Fairplay, describing it as “utterly sick.”
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group → report → it
“There is nothing funny about the damage Meta has done to kids’ lives,” Fairplay Communications Director Ashwin Verghese said at the time.
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Verghese → be → time
“It’s good these revelations are coming out, though, so parents and policymakers know exactly how this company operates.”
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company → ’ → ?
Meta’s critics have argued for years that the company should be more transparent about its internal research and documents detailing the risks that apps like Facebook and Instagram pose to kids.
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apps → argue → kids
Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing complex federal multidistrict litigation in California federal court – a bid to streamline thousands of cases that make similar claims about social media addiction and online harm into a few “bellwether” cases to determine the legal merits of their arguments.
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that → oversee → arguments
Elsewhere, Meta reached a separate $18 billion settlement with a coalition of 48 state attorneys general In August.
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Meta → reach → August
As part of that settlement, the company agreed to impose changes such as daily usage limits for teens.
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company → agree → teens
Meta did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Meta → return → comment
The Aporia
