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- One of the lawsuits filed against Meta by dozens of state attorneys general has been unredacted.
- It claims that Mark Zuckerberg ignored global affairs boss Nick Clegg's calls for more investment in teen wellbeing.
- It also says he vetoed work to ban cosmetic surgery filters that experts said were harmful to mental health.
Mark Zuckerberg ignored top Meta executives' requests to tackle child safety concerns, according to a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts attorney general.
The legal action was initially filed last month as part of the barrage of dozens of states taking Meta to court, but was updated without redactions this week.
The Massachusetts filing says that Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, in 2021 forwarded a request from Instagram's wellbeing team to invest in staff to address the "currently underinvested" teen wellbeing areas of "problematic use, bullying+harassment, connections, [and Suicide and Self-Injury (SSI)]."
The suit says Clegg then forwarded this to Zuckerberg, backing the request and emphasizing that it was "increasingly urgent" to address "concerns about the impact of our products on young people's mental health."
Clegg added that its current wellbeing work was "both understaffed and fragmented," according to the complaint.
But the suit says that Zuckerberg "ignored Clegg's request for months" while Meta's leadership continued to publicly advocate for the need to invest in wellbeing.
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The 102-page court document also accuses Zuckerberg of rejecting internal efforts to prohibit cosmetic surgery filters — effects that users can add to alter their appearance on photos or videos
In 2019, a Meta VP emailed leadership, including Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, asking for support to change its policies to remove such filters. It had received unanimous support until CTO Andrew Bosworth noted that Zuckerberg questioned whether these filters actually "represent real harm," according to the suit.
A 2020 meeting with Zuckerberg about the filters — with a pre-read including 21 experts agreeing that they are detrimental to mental health — was cancelled a day before it was due to take place, the lawsuit says.
The same day, Zuckerberg vetoed the proposal and ordered staff to "relax" or "lift" a temporary ban that was in place pending his approval, per the suit.
According to the lawsuit, Zuckerberg's reasoning was that there was "clear demand" for the filters, and he "claimed, falsely" to have seen no data suggesting they were harmful.
In a statement shared with Insider, a Meta spokesperson said: "As a result of Meta's ongoing investment in the well-being of the people that use our services, teens and their parents now have over 30 tools and resources, and we have protections to help keep teens safe and away from potentially harmful content or unwanted contact.
It added that it has a "a robust central team overseeing youth well-being efforts across the company" and said the complaint is "filled with selective quotes from handpicked documents" that don't provide the full context.