The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that Meta halted internal research on the mental health impacts of Facebook after discovering evidence that its products were harmful, according to court filings in a lawsuit by U.S. school districts against Meta and other social media platforms. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that in a 2020 research project code-named "Project Mercury," Meta scientists worked with survey firm Nielsen to gauge the effect of "deactivating" Facebook, according to Meta documents obtained via discovery. To Meta's disappointment, "people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and social comparison," internal documents said. Instead of publishing the findings or continuing research, Meta halted further work and deemed the study's negative results influenced by the "existing media narrative." Despite this, a staffer privately asserted the research conclusions were valid. An unnamed staffer worried that keeping quiet about negative findings would be akin to the tobacco industry "doing research and knowing cigs were bad and then keeping that info to themselves." Meta said the study was stopped because its methodology was flawed.