Meta Discussed ‘Whisper Strategy’ to Discredit Social Media Critic Jonathan Haidt, Files Show
The Guardian reports:
Meta staff discussed deploying a “whisper strategy” to undermine the influential US academic whose work has inspired a global social media crackdown, according to court documents. Employees at the parent group of Facebook and Instagram sought to discredit Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist and author of The Anxious Generation, a book that helped tip the debate about online safety towards more stringent measures such as the under-16 ban in Australia.
Minutes of internal meetings contained in a recent legal filing in the US showed that staff discussed how to “get the academic community to disavow Haidt”. They appear in a document titled “Well-being Meeting Sound-check Notes”, which refers to discussions of how Meta could “turn other academics against Haidt” and to a “whisper strategy” aimed at achieving that goal. It also mentions “debunking” his work. Minutes from a meeting on 8 March 2023 mention “Curtiss”, an apparent reference to Meta’s then vice-president of research, Curtiss Cobb. It states: “Curtiss’s goal for this work: how do we get the academic community to disavow Haidt. Can’t co-opt them, so how do we enrage them … so the media finds him not credible.”
It then adds: “Not thinking about this as a loud strategy. A below-the-line campaign….”
The minutes were produced before Haidt published his book in 2024 and discuss responding to a Substack post written by the academic in which he reviews “a bunch of articles”.
“It is not clear whether Meta acted on the ideas outlined in the minutes.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
