New documents show the tactics Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok execs used to disrupt learning, prey on minors, and co-opt the PTA to control the narrative with parents
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, The Tech Oversight Project published a new report spotlighting newly unsealed documents in the 2026 social media addiction trials. The documents provide smoking-gun evidence that Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok all purposefully designed their social media products to addict children and teens with no regard for known harms to their wellbeing, and how that mass youth addiction was core to the companies’ business models. The documents contain internal discussions among company employees, presentations from internal meetings, expert testimony, and evidence of Big Tech coordination with tech-funded groups, including the National Parent Teachers Association (PTA) and Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), in attempts to control the narrative in response to concerned parents.
“These unsealed documents prove Big Tech has been gaslighting and lying to the public for years, and it’s high time parents and young people get their day in court,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project. “Disrupted learning and social media addiction are core to Big Tech’s business model, and while the JCCP and MDL cases have the potential to chip away at their wrongdoing, Congress needs to make good on their years-long promise to pass the Senate’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act.”
Review of MDL No. 3047 Partially Unsealed Meta Exhibits:
Docket #2648, filed 1/20/26, *All exhibit numbers prefixed with “Amended”
INTERNAL DOCUMENTS:
Exhibit 44: 2016 Teen Growth emails
Email stating that “Mark has decided that the top priority for the company in H1 2017 is teens”
Exhibit 63: July 2016 internal emails
Extensive discussion of Facebook’s involvement with the Lifestage app indicating that the app was launched with very few safeguards over internal concerns.
Exhibit 54: Everyone on Facebook HS Edition
Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day).
Exhibit 46: 2016 internal employee message
Message stating “Engaging the vast majority of teens in an area / school with our products is crucial to driving overall time spent in the same area, especially for Messaging features.”
Exhibit 41: Feb 2018 Youth Small Group Update
Internal document discussing the idea of creating a product called “Tweens on Facebook” and piloting a “private mode” on Facebook – a second account designed to give teens “plausible deniability” (presumably from parents and teachers), inspired by the popularity of “finstas.” Includes internal discussion on how to counter the narrative that Facebook is bad for youth and admission that internal data shows that Facebook use is correlated with lower well-being (although it says the effect reverses longitudinally).
Exhibit 1179: Document Titled “Schoooools Review,” February 8, 2018
Heavily-redacted internal document – “one of the key goals of the Youth Growth team is to get teens onto Facebook and to stay there.”
Exhibit 68: 2018 Instagram Ambassador Program
Internal document discussing ambassador program for recruiting and onboarding “teen tastemakers to act as our plug at local high schools.” The ideal ambassador profile is someone 13-17 who is “diverse” and “well-connected to peers.” Includes compensation, incentives, and swag for ambassadors, who would have to sign NDAs.
Exhibit 69: 2018 “High School Directory – Product Messaging & Launch Doc. [working draft]”
Document detailing a “high school directory” feature product launch on Instagram. Details plans to use Teen Ambassador Network and community channels to create buzz and drive adoption.
Exhibit 45: 2018 Youth Team Review
Document laying out multi-year youth acquisition strategy for Meta starting with very young users, noting that “Facebook is likely U13’s (under-13’s) first social media app (driven by parents).” Discusses “focusing on each youth life stage” from “Kid” (ages 6-10) to “Teen” (13+). Discusses three “levers” for driving teen growth: school profile completion; demoting meme content; and boosting teen producer content in the news feed.
Exhibit 73: Message Titled “Instagram Insights,” October 18, 2018
Details results of an interview study on conflicts on Instagram. “Current classifiers and policies do not address many of these conflicts.” “Teens weaponize IG features to torment each other, often without violating standards.” “IG conflicts are common and painful; most participants regret engaging in conflicts”
“What pain points do Black users aged 13-14 experience on Instagram?” “Young Black users of Instagram report experiences of cultural appropriation and race-based negativity on the platform.”
Exhibit 53: 2023 “Controlling the Narrative” slide deck
Heavily-redacted slide deck includes suggestion that Instagram could “use school networks as a lever for acquisition” to better compete with Snap and a desire to “position Instagram as integral to navigating school relationships, especially during transition periods” like graduating/changing schools.
Exhibit 39: Unnamed Meta employee deposition, 5/8/25
Employee deposition discussing National PTA partnership.
EXPERT REPORTS:
Exhibit 997: Expert Report of Seth Noar, May 16, 2025
Concluding that Defendants did not provide effective warnings to adolescent users and parents about the risks and harms of social media use.
Exhibit 989: Expert Report by Tim Estes, May 16, 2025
Concluding that Defendants’ platforms were not designed to be reasonably safe for children, and that age verification and parental consent/control systems were ineffective.
PREVIOUSLY-REPORTED MATERIAL:
Exhibit 373: Email Exchange with Subject “Re: Teens Council,” February 7, 2015
“We learned one of the things we need to optimize for is sneaking a look at your phone under your desk in the middle of Chemistry :)”
Exhibit 43: 2017 employee chat logs
Discussion of mapping teen locations to specific schools – likely a privacy violation. Parts of this document were previously unsealed.
Infamously state that “The lifetime value of a 13 y/o teen is roughly $270 per teen.”
Internal research demonstrating that young users have greater long term retention.
Exhibit 75: Slides titled “Teen Mental Health: Creatures of Habit,” August/September 2019
Results of a study on teen mental health. Toplines include the following:
“Teens can’t switch off from Instagram even if they want to”
“Teens talk of Instagram in terms of an ‘addicts narrative’ spending too much time indulging in a compulsive behaviour that they know is negative but feel powerless to resist.”
Exhibit 74: Message exchange, September 10, 2020
Employee message exchange comparing Instagram to drugs and slot machines. “Oh my gosh yall IG is a drug” “Lol, I mean , all social media. We’re basically pushers”
Review of MDL No. 3047 Partially Unsealed Google/YouTube Exhibits:
Docket #2651, filed 1/20/26. *All exhibit numbers prefixed with “Amended”
INTERNAL DOCUMENTS:
Exhibit 774: February 2018 Slides- “Digital Wellness Overview – YT Autoplay”
Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s autoplay feature plays in “Tech Addiction” that concludes “Verdict: Autoplay could be potentially disrupting sleep patterns. Disabling or limiting Autoplay during the night could result in sleep savings.”
Exhibit 1062: May 2018 email chain with James Beser “Re: screentime conversation”
Email chain with YouTube product management director James Besar in which an educator suggests that parents limit children’s screen time before school.
Exhibit 758: December 2018 Slides – “G Suite for Education”
Slidedeck reviewing G Suite for Education that includes the statements “YouTube isn’t safe, often blocked in schools.” “No way to block unsafe content, comments, ads.” “Efforts to make YouTube safe for schools have yet to work.”
Exhibit 757: 2019 Slides – “YouTube via G Suite”
Slidedeck discussing the “Managed Restricted Mode” (MRM) management tool allowing administrators to manage users and permission in a domain. “The YouTube experience in K-12 schools is broken.” “Example 3: Ads and content appropriateness concerns cause YT to be blocked.” “YouTube via G Suite is ads-supported and brings some content risk.”
Exhibit 772: 2019 Internal Document – “2019 Strategy Offsite Two Pagers”
Discussing efforts to improve digital well-being, particularly among youth. Identified three concern areas impacting users 13-24 disproportionately: habitual heavy use, late night use, and unintentional use.
Exhibit 741: November 2020 Slides – “Business Case for Kids and Families at Google”
Google document detailing a business plan to expand products and access to children. “Onboarding kids into Google’s Ecosystem leads to brand trust and loyalty over their lifetime”
“So essentially making the case that it’s not just schools, but it’s also a compelling “cool” product that keeps a kid/teen for life.”
Exhibit 1061: September 2021 Slides – “YouTube Watch: Autoplay & DWB”
Slidedeck with editor comments discussing user wellbeing. “Status Quo Take a Break and Bedtime reminders are currently only available on Android/iOS, despite [redacted] of YTT taking place on Web.” “Currently most of our wellbeing tools require going into settings with the intention to use them.” “Do people even know we have these tools? How many people actually use them?” “How are we measuring wellbeing? Current answer – we’re not?”
Emails discussing initiatives to appeal to teens. “Shorts is our big thing for teen appeal. But beyond just Shorts, we’ve instituted a teen focus across our core experiences, including setting a teen-specific fun, engagement, and responsibility OKRs.”
“MRM tends to be trivially easy for students to bypass if they clear cookies, sign out, open an incognito tab, or switch devices, so generally it’s not a high priority to make these blocks completely foolproof.”
Slide deck analyzing teen and millennial views and behavior concerning YouTube. “‘Down the Rabbit-Hole’ Phenomenon. 1 in 4 Millennials admit they’ve been ‘late to work because they spent too long on their phone.” Includes statistics on the influence of YouTube in shaping the personal opinions and lives of 13-17 year olds.
Exhibit 732: “Teen (Unsupervised) Viewer Wellbeing and Safety) (DRAFT),” (Undated)
Document discussing perceptions and challenges related to teen wellbeing and safety on YouTube. “However, we still have work to do on the two biggest challenges for teen wellbeing on YouTube: (1) low quality content recommendations that can convey & normalize unhealthy beliefs or behaviors (2) prolonged unintentional use displacing valuable activities like time with friends or sleep. These concerns are loudest on short form content (more popular with teens) due to its lack of depth and infinite feed experience.”
“We don’t know if our break and bedtime reminders ‘work’ (and haven’t looked too deeply). What is YT’s responsibility in this area? Should we do more sensitive Research to understand better, especially for Shorts?”
Internal slidedeck admitting “negative wellbeing effects can result from user behaviors” and documenting four video-watching behaviors that bring about the majority of negative wellbeing effects: (1) late night use, (2) heavy habitual use, (3) unintentional use, and (4) problematic content.
EXECUTIVE DEPOSITIONS:
Exhibit 1012: April 24, 2025 Deposition of Neal Mohan (CEO of YouTube)
Deposition of Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube.
PREVIOUSLY-REPORTED MATERIAL:
Literature review of research on the effect of digital videos on viewer well-being. “Watching short videos results in a ‘quick fix’ of dopamine. Dopamine is related to feelings of reward. Similar to feelings of reward when using drugs or other addictive substances.” “Researchers feel that YT is built with the intention of being addictive. Designed with tricks to encourage binge-watching (i.e. autoplay, recommendations, etc).” “Notifications are a critical part of YouTube and contribute to addiction.”
Review of MDL No. 3047 Partially Unsealed Snap Exhibits:
Docket #2649, filed 1/20/26. *All exhibit numbers prefixed with “Amended”
INTERNAL DOCUMENTS:
Exhibit 845: 2017 “Snap Habits” slides
Slide citing internal research showing that 64% of Snapchatters ages 13-21 use Snapchat during school.
Exhibit 826: March 2017 Email Chain “Re: MoffettNathanson | SNAP: A Middle School Crush?”
Internal email chain in which Snap CEO Evan Spiegel asking for full text of an article reporting that “despite the rules that don’t allow those under the age of 13 to be on Snapchat, our focus group clearly showed that the middle school set was a rabid – almost exclusive – user of Snapchat.”
Exhibit 849: March 2023 “Social Media – Wellness Perception Research” slides
Includes a slide listing design opportunities to address “negative perceptions” about youth and social media, few to none of which were ever adopted.
EXECUTIVE DEPOSITIONS:
Exhibit 803: Deposition of Evan T. Spiegel (CEO of Snap), April 11, 2025
Moderately-redacted deposition transcript with questions addressing topics including internal documents regarding teen safety as well as Spiegel’s previous statements to Congress.
Review of MDL No. 3047 Partially Unsealed TikTok Exhibits:
Docket #2650, filed 1/20/26. *All exhibit numbers prefixed with “Amended”
INTERNAL DOCUMENTS:
Exhibit 453: February 2020 “PTA/FOSI working group” employee messages
Heavily-redacted employee conversation discussing an event held by TikTok in conjunction with the National PTA (“PTA”) and the Family Online Safety Institute (“FOSI”). One chat participant says that they are happy that news crews did not show up to the event because “This student panel is primarily under 13 and they’re all talking about what they post why they post and how they know they’re not supposed to have an account.” Another comment says “a parent asked ‘ how old were you when you started using social media.’ All of them said btwn ages 8-12 and admitted to lieing about their birthdate to get around it. One girl said she’s 20 on Instagram”
Exhibit 537: September 2021 “[External] Digital Wellbeing Product Strategy” internal document
Heavily-redacted internal document states: “We have built some important (digital wellbeing) foundational features, but there is a lot of room for them to grow … “we have learned from [link to internal research] that our users’ biggest usage deterrent is that they think the platform is addictive … In sum, compulsive usage on TikTok is rampant and our users need better tools to understand their usage, manage it effectively, and ensure being on TikTok is time well spent” … “TikTok is particularly popular with younger users, who are particularly sensitive to reinforcement in the form of social reward and have minimal ability to self-regulate effectively.”
