Three years ago, Meta apparently considered a plan to turn public opinion against one of its most influential opponents, Jonathan Haidt. But since the proposal was revealed in court filings last month, it’s backfired. In fact, if there’s one thing Anxious Generation author Haidt and his critics can agree on, it’s being mad at Meta.
Recent court filings in California revealed that Meta employees had discussed in 2023 a “Whisper strategy” to “turn academics against Haidt,” who would soon publish a bestselling book arguing that platforms like Meta’s were hurting kids. Haidt had spent years popularizing his theory that social media and smartphones are to blame for the decline in teens’ mental health, including in his 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind and before Congress in 2022. To counter it, Meta apparently considered a “Below-the-line campaign,” including one idea to “Get Gellman to write a take-down piece” — possibly a reference to Columbia University statistics and political science professor Andrew Gelman, who’d previously publicly critiqued Haidt, though the spelling differs.
Meta employees had discussed in 2023 a “Whisper strategy” to “turn academics against Haidt”
It’s unclear if Meta ever acted on the strategy those employees appeared to consider.
