California judge blasts Metas attorney-client privilege swag hats, rejects companys request to use AI for document review | Latest Tech News
A federal judge blasted Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta for utilizing attorney-client privilege to conceal 1000’s of doubtlessly explosive legal paperwork associated to youngsters’ social media dependancy – stating that she had “never seen a company whose employees are so taken” with exploiting the legal loophole.
The harsh phrases surfaced during a testy Oct. 9 listening to in California federal court, just a couple of weeks after plaintiffs revealed that Instagram had made swag hats for its staff with the phrase “attorney-client privilege” to rejoice the 2024 launch of Instagram’s Teen Accounts. Critics beforehand lambasted the hats as an “utterly sick” joke about concealing explosive legal paperwork.
Instagram made the “attorney-client privilege” hats to rejoice the launch of Instagram Teen Accounts in 2024.
In the case in which the hat swag surfaced, a coalition of faculty districts have accused Meta of fueling a teen mental health disaster.
“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 listening to, according to a transcript obtained by The 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.”
Simonsen appeared to have interrupted the judge with her remark, prompting an irked Gonzalez Rogers to reply, “You need to stop talking when I start whether you like it or not.”
“A further review is required, period,” the judge added.
In a weird twist, Gonzalez Rogers also shot down a request by Meta’s Simonsen to use an AI model to velocity up review of the withheld paperwork – asserting that the court couldn’t trust the model to be dependable without more info.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, district judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, attends a panel dialogue held by the annual American Bar Association in Washington, DC, in April 2025. AFP via Getty Images
“I don’t trust AI, obviously, as much as you do,” the judge said. “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 finally agreed to collectively abide by the findings of an unbiased “special master” — retired US Judge Suzanne Segal, who will review the company’s classifications for some 170,000 paperwork and decide which have been correctly withheld and which weren’t.
Judge Gonzalez Rodgers accredited the method on Wednesday.
In a joint submitting on Monday, Meta agreed to go back over an average of 20,000 paperwork per week that have been initially marked as privileged. It was given until Dec. 30 to full the method.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems at an event. Getty Images
Additionally, each week the particular grasp will review a random pattern of 200 paperwork that Meta claims ought to remained privileged or redacted. She’ll then make a resolution on whether or not the classification is correct – or if the docs must be turned over to the plaintiffs as requested.
Any company data that the particular grasp determines must be unredacted must be turned over within 5 days. Meta also has to cowl the fee of the review.
As The Post reported last month, online security advocates have been outraged over Meta’s resolution to make the “attorney-client privilege” hats for staff – with one group, Fairplay, describing it as “utterly sick.”
“There is nothing funny about the damage Meta has done to kids’ lives,” Fairplay Communications Director Ashwin Verghese said at the time. “It’s good these revelations are coming out, though, so parents and policymakers know exactly how this company operates.”
A 3D-printed Meta brand is seen in this illustration, Monday, July 20, 2026. REUTERS
Meta’s critics have argued for years that the company must be more clear about its inner research and paperwork detailing the dangers that apps like Facebook and Instagram pose to youngsters.
In one past occasion, data from California court confirmed the company’s own researchers in contrast Instagram to a “drug” and said they have been “basically pushers.”
Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing complicated federal multidistrict litigation in California federal court – a bid to streamline 1000’s of instances that make comparable claims about social media dependancy and online hurt into a few “bellwether” instances to decide the legal deserves of their arguments.
In May, Meta reached a settlement with Breathitt County School District in Kentucky to keep away from a trial that had been slated to start in Oakland on June 15. However, 1000’s more are still pending.
Elsewhere, Meta reached a separate $18 billion settlement with a coalition of 48 state attorneys common In August. As half of that settlement, the company agreed to impose modifications such as daily usage limits for teenagers.
Meta didn’t immediately return a request for remark.
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