By Clare Duffy, Samantha Delouya and Veronica Miracle, CNN
Mark Zuckerberg arrives at Los Angeles Superior Court ahead of the social media trial tasked to determine whether social media giants deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive to children, in Los Angeles. Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was grilled about whether his company intentionally designed Instagram to be addictive, in front of the young woman accusing Meta and YouTube of hooking her as a child and damaging her mental health.
His testimony marks the first time Zuckerberg is answering before a jury about years-old claims that his platforms harmed young people.
Zuckerberg entered through the front door of the Los Angeles Superior courthouse around 8:30 a.m. local time, past a swarm of parents, media and jurors also waiting in line to enter. He did not respond to a question about what his message would be to parents who say their children were harmed by social media.
Nearly a dozen parents who say their children were hurt or died as a result of social media travelled from around the country to attend and gathered hands outside the courthouse before Zuckerberg arrived. They say the hearing marks a crucial moment of accountability for Meta following years of concerns about youth safety on its platforms Facebook and Instagram.
Meta, as well as YouTube, are accused of intentionally designing addictive features that drew in the now-20-year-old woman when she was still in elementary school. The lawsuit brought by the young woman, identified by her lawyer as "Kaley," and her mother is the first of more than 1500 similar lawsuits to go to trial. Meta has denied the lawsuit's claims.
Kaley was in the tightly-packed courtroom for Zuckerberg's testimony on Wednesday (local time). Her lawyer, Mark Lanier, previously said she would not be present for much of the trial proceedings because she has social anxiety and difficulty being around crowds, although she is expected to testify.
A Meta spokesperson said "we strongly disagree" with the allegations in the lawsuit. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
Questioning Instagram's age policies
Zuckerberg was pressed on Wednesday about whether children younger than 13 have access to Instagram. The app technically requires users to be 13 to sign up, and Zuckerberg said younger children are "not allowed on Instagram."
But Lanier showed an internal document from 2015 that estimated over 4 million Instagram users were under 13, which it said represented "30 percent of all 10-12 year olds in the US." Lanier has said the now-20-year-old plaintiff, Kaley, began using Instagram at age 9.
Lanier pointed out that it wasn't until December 2019 that Instagram began asking new users to input a birthdate when signing up; previously, it just asked them to confirm they were above the age of 13. Instagram in August 2021 started asking existing users to provide a birthdate if they hadn't done so previously, as part of a safety push for young people.
That means Kaley wasn't asked for her age at all when she joined the platform.
Zuckerberg said that in 2019, before the birthdate rule was implemented, there was "some concern around privacy," but he thinks they eventually landed on the right policy.
Lanier has said Kaley sometimes used Instagram for "several hours a day," and was once on the platform for more than 16 hours in a single day, despite her mother's attempts to curb her use. Kaley claims the app's addictive features led her to develop anxiety, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts and that she experienced bullying and sextortion on Instagram.
A Meta spokesperson has said "we strongly disagree" with the allegations in Kaley's lawsuit and "are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people." The company's lawyer has argued that it was Kaley's difficult family life, rather than social media, that caused her mental health challenges. YouTube also denies the lawsuit's claims.
"The question for the jury in Los Angeles is whether Instagram was a substantial factor in the plaintiff's mental health struggles," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement ahead of Zuckerberg's testimony. "The evidence will show she faced many significant, difficult challenges well before she ever used social media."
Meta has pointed to safety features, such as parental oversight tools and "teen accounts," which implement default privacy settings and content restrictions for users under the age of 18.
Lanier asked Zuckerberg whether a company should "prey upon" people who come from difficult backgrounds or are "less fortunate in educational opportunities."
"I think a reasonable company should try to help the people who use its services," Zuckerberg replied.
The exchange got somewhat heated when Lanier questioned whether Zuckerberg and Meta set goals to maximize time spent on the app. The Meta CEO said time-specific goals existed "earlier on in the company" but it then shifted to focus on "utility and value."
"There's a basic assumption I have that if something is valuable, then people will do it more," Zuckerberg said on the stand.
Lanier showed an internal email from December 2015 in which Zuckerberg referenced a three-year plan for the company, which included "Time - +10% for Instagram."
"We used to give teams goals... we changed that because I don't think it's the best way to run the company," Zuckerberg said in response. He argued that Lanier was mischaracterising his approach from a decade ago.
Profits over safety?
Zuckerberg is expected to face more questions about Meta's knowledge of the risks its platforms could pose for young users, and whether those safety features were sufficient to mitigate them.
"I'm sure he's going to talk about the fact that he has children and this is really important to him... I think he's going to just talk about everything that they're doing to make it seem like 'we're doing the best we can,'" Kimberly Pallen, a partner at the law firm Withers who specializes in complex civil litigation, told CNN. "That's probably what it's going to come down to: From the jury's perspective, are they doing enough? And do they care?"
Zuckerberg's performance on the stand could also play a significant role in how the jury views the case, Pallen said.
"It's going to turn on how these people testify in front of the jury, if the jury likes them, and what the documents show," she said.
Zuckerberg is also likely to be asked - as Instagram chief Adam Mosseri was during his own testimony last week - whether he prioritized earning profits over youth safety with his product decisions, as Kaley alleges.
Earlier in testimony, Zuckerberg discussed his majority ownership stake in Meta. He argued that the better Meta stock does, the more money gets invested into science and research, adding that he has pledged to give away 99% of his wealth.
Lanier asked whether Zuckerberg would also "pledge money for the victims of social media."
"I disagree with the characterisation of your question," Zuckerberg said.
Matthew Bergman, head of the Social Media Victims Law Center which is representing Kaley, said that internal Meta documents indicate the company "understood the dangers its platforms posed to young people."
"Yet Zuckerberg and Meta pushed forward, choosing features designed to keep kids online longer, even when those choices put children directly in harm's way. For parents who have spent years fighting to be heard, this moment carries profound weight," Bergman said in a statement Tuesday (local time).
- CNN
