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Technology

Jun. 4, 2026

Judge rejects bid to pierce Meta privilege claims in social media MDL

A federal magistrate judge ordered Meta to produce additional versions of a disputed slide deck but rejected state attorneys general's effort to invoke the crime-fraud exception and obtain attorney-client communications in litigation over adolescent social media addiction.

Meta employee's communications with in-house lawyers who urged the company to alter a slide deck are privileged, despite repeated attempts from a group of state attorneys general to show the messages fell under the crime-fraud exception, a magistrate judge ruled in the multidistrict litigation over adolescent social media addiction.

In a May 18 order unsealed Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang ordered that Meta produce the original version of the slide deck but that ...

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