Zuckerberg denies Instagram designed to addict children in landmark trial

ISTANBUL

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told jurors Wednesday during his first courtroom testimony centered on child safety that the company did not design Instagram to be addictive for young users, rejecting claims that the platform harms children.

Zuckerberg gave lengthy and combative testimony in Los Angeles County Superior Court, defending Meta against a lawsuit alleging that its social media platforms cause harm to minors.

“I’m focused on building a community that is sustainable,” he said, when asked whether Meta wants people to be addicted to its platforms.

Plaintiffs allege that the companies behind Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat intentionally created addictive platforms that negatively impact the mental health of young users.

“If you do something that’s not good for people, maybe they’ll spend more time (on Instagram) short term, but if they’re not happy with it, they’re not going to use it over time. I’m not trying to maximize the amount of time people spend every month," Zuckerberg added, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The trial is the first in a consolidated group of cases filed by more than 1,600 plaintiffs, including over 350 families and more than 250 school districts.

TikTok and Snap settled with the first plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., before the trial, but both companies still face similar lawsuits set to proceed later this year.

Kaley G.M., who was a minor at the time, alleges early social media use caused addiction and harmed her mental health, accusing companies of designing addictive features for profit. She attended part of the hearing but did not testify, while her attorney, Mark Lanier, said it was “going to be a good day.”

Zuckerberg maintained that children under 13 have never been allowed on Instagram, despite Kaley’s claim that she joined at age 9.

“I generally think that there are a set of people, potentially a meaningful number of people, who lie about their age in order to use our services,” he said. “There’s a separate and very important question about enforcement, and it’s very difficult.”

Lanier presented a 2018 internal document indicating Instagram estimated that about 4 million users were under 13 — around 30% of all 10- to 12-year-olds in the US at the time.

Zuckerberg said Meta has introduced tools over time to detect underage users, though Lanier pointed out that such age verification measures were not in place when many children first joined Instagram.

A 2017 internal message showed employees criticizing Zuckerberg’s push to “go after under 13-year-olds,” with one staffer writing: “Yeah, it was gross the last time he mentioned it.”

A 2022 document listed a target of 40 minutes of daily app use for Instagram users in 2023, rising to 46 minutes by 2026.

“These aren’t goals we give the teams for executing their jobs,” Zuckerberg said. “They’re ways we measure across the industry whether what we’re creating is on track.”