Meta's own employees put it in writing that "IG is a drug" and "We're basically pushers."
Florida just filed those chats in court.
Now Attorney General James Uthmeier is asking a judge to ban every child under 14 from Instagram and Facebook before another school year passes.
Florida Rejected the $11.66 Billion Sellout
Fifty-one states and territories took Meta's money on August 26 – $11.66 billion spread over ten years to make the lawsuits go away.
Florida said no.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2107834167031468183?s=20
Uthmeier filed for a temporary injunction in Pasco County Circuit Court Wednesday, calling the national settlement "a mere slap on the wrist" that amounts to two days of Meta's annual revenue at a company valued at $1.86 trillion.
"Meta tried to get us to take their low-ball settlement, but we won't sell out our kids," Uthmeier wrote.
His filing goes straight for the jugular – Meta's own internal communications.
Beyond the drug pusher chats, an internal discussion about "Project Daisy" – a secret company study on youth harm – captured an employee brushing off concerns about harming teenagers: "It's a social comparison app, f*** get used to it."
These aren't leaked documents from a disgruntled employee.
These are Meta's own words filed in a Florida court.
700,000 Underage Accounts and a Deliberate Business Decision
The filing reveals that Meta sat on a backlog of 700,000 unacted-upon underage accounts.
The company "deprioritized" enforcement – not because it lacked the tools – but because children under 13 were viewed internally as a "big build opportunity."
That means your grandchildren weren't an oversight – they were a target demographic.
Meta's own research confirmed its algorithms exploited the adolescent brain's susceptibility to a "dopamine hit," engineering the platform to make it far harder for teenagers to stop scrolling.
The Florida filing documents anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and exposure to predators through direct messages as known consequences Meta tracked internally.
The company knew.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2092624537217110086?s=20
They kept the accounts open anyway.
Uthmeier's injunction would force Meta to disable public like counts, infinite scrolling, autoplay, and late-night notifications for teenagers – and block the platforms from engaging children during school hours or while they sleep.
His office also turned Meta's own public statements against it, noting the company has described these exact changes as the new industry standard – and asked the court: if Meta admits these protections are appropriate, why are Florida children still waiting?
This Is a Pattern, Not a Surprise
Frances Haugen blew the whistle in 2021, leaking thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents showing executives knew Instagram was harming teenage girls – and did nothing.
A 2021 internal Meta estimate found that approximately 100,000 children were sexually harassed – including being sent explicit images – every single day on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta's response was to call the documents "mischaracterized" and "cherry-picked."
Zuckerberg went before Congress and declared protecting children a "top priority."
His employees were typing "we're basically pushers" in the company chat at the same time.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2107863540719669578?s=20
Every other state looked at that record and accepted a check worth two days of Meta's revenue.
Florida went back to court instead.
If Uthmeier wins this injunction, Meta faces a court order requiring it to do what it has publicly claimed it already wants to do: remove children from the platform and shut off the features designed to keep their brains hooked.
Zuckerberg has had five years of warnings, a whistleblower, and dozens of state lawsuits – and the only thing that has changed is the size of the settlement checks he writes.
The only question now is whether a Florida judge will finally make him do something that actually costs him.
Sources:
- Kennedy Owens, "Florida AG seeks court order to ban kids under 14 from Meta platforms, cites 'drug pusher' internal chats," Florida News, October 7, 2026.
- "Florida AG announces Meta compliance with kids' social media ban," Fox News, April 2, 2026.
- "Unredacted complaint alleges Meta estimated up to 100,000 children per day sexually harassed on company platforms," CNBC, January 18, 2024.
- "How leaked Facebook documents propelled social media lawsuits," Context News, 2024.
