Meta's legal team is facing accusations of abusing attorney-client privilege protections to withhold evidence in lawsuits concerning alleged harm to young users' mental health and safety. Lawyers suing the company have challenged Meta's broad application of privilege redactions, and a judge has already ruled some of these withholdings "entirely inappropriate." The controversy is particularly pointed given a recently unsealed document revealing that Meta's Instagram Teen Accounts team ordered branded baseball caps reading "a/c priv" (attorney-client privilege), which plaintiffs characterise as emblematic of a deliberate culture to conceal internal research on teenage harm.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers highlighted one instance where Meta's lawyers attempted to claim attorney-client privilege over a business discussion about publishing data—a characterisation the judge rejected based on trial testimony showing the company's reluctance was driven by leak prevention rather than legal consultation. Meta previously de-designated approximately 65,000 redacted documents in April 2025, but plaintiffs argue this disclosure came too late to be useful in depositions. The company is currently requesting time until the end of 2026 to re-review other privilege redactions, whilst plaintiffs propose that an independent, Meta-funded neutral party should oversee this review instead.