Mark Zuckerberg told a jury on Wednesday that Meta no longer tried to maximise the time users spend on the platform, as the billionaire sought to fend off a landmark legal claim that social media is addictive to children.
The Meta chief executive tried to counter internal emails and documents from between 2015 and 2022, presented by the plaintiffs in the case, in which he and other Meta employees explicitly stated that boosting time spent was a goal or milestone, included among teenaged users.
Zuckerberg testified that the company no longer set internal goals around time spent on the platform, focusing instead on “utility” and “value” to users over the longer term.
“I’m focused on building a community that’s sustainable,” Zuckerberg told the court.
In tense exchanges before a packed courtroom, Zuckerberg repeatedly said lawyers for the plaintiffs were mischaracterising evidence, adding that the company had shifted to no longer make time spent a focus.
The case comes as social media platforms face a reckoning over whether they will suffer legal consequences from claims their products are harmful to young people, prompting comparisons with the 1990s crackdown on Big Tobacco.
The Los Angeles trial is one of a series of test cases that will set the direction for a larger group of similar claims — all of which contend that Big Tech platforms cause personal injury by developing deliberately addictive products.
Thousands of individuals, school districts and state attorneys-general have filed similar lawsuits against social media platforms, seeking damages and design changes. Losing the Los Angeles case would represent a major blow to Meta and Google, as it could set a precedent for a flood of similar suits.
In this first case, the plaintiff, a 20-year-old known only as K.G.M., argues that she became addicted to Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube during her childhood, leading to mental health issues including anxiety and depression.
Snap and TikTok settled with the same plaintiff for an undisclosed amount shortly before the case went to trial.
Mark Lanier, the lawyer for K.G.M., pressed Zuckerberg on testimony that the chief executive made under oath during past congressional hearings, in which he said that under-13s were not allowed on Instagram.
Lanier presented as evidence a 2018 internal document in which company staff estimated that there were 4mn users under 13 years old on Instagram in 2015, about 30 per cent of all 10- to 12-year-olds in the US. Lanier also noted that the company asked for existing users’ birthdays in 2021.
Zuckerberg maintained that the company was taking action to root out under-13s from the platform but acknowledged that this was “difficult to determine” due to the number of people who lie about their age.
“I wish we could’ve gotten there sooner,” he said, adding that the company was “now in the right place” and would add more tools to address this in future.
The discovery and depositions in the case have been damaging for Meta.
Internal documents show Meta was aware that beauty filters — special effects intended to make people look more attractive by digitally altering their appearance on camera — could encourage body dysmorphia and other health concerns in teens.
But in 2020 Zuckerberg appeared to push for them to be restored, with “competitiveness/growth” cited as a reason, despite resistance from other executives.
The documents also state that Zuckerberg ignored multiple requests from executives, including former global affairs head Nick Clegg, for more resources to be directed into user wellbeing.
Meanwhile, further internal emails show employees acknowledging the potential addictiveness of the social platform. “IG [Instagram] is a drug . . . We’re basically pushers,” one researcher wrote in an email, stating that Instagram chief Adam Mosseri “freaked out” when they had raised the topic of dopamine hits from social media usage.
Another allegation to emerge was the testimony from one former top safety executive, alongside internal documentation, that claimed Meta once had a “17x” strike policy for accounts engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex”.
“That means that you could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended,” the executive said in a deposition.
Ahead of the trial, Meta said in a blog post the plaintiffs would “try to paint an intentionally misleading picture of Meta with cherry-picked quotes and snippets of conversations taken out of context”.
Meta argues that scientific research does not support the claim that social media is addictive and that other factors could have resulted in K.G.M’s mental health struggles, such as familial abuse.
It has pointed to billions of dollars in investments in child safety as evidence that it has not been negligent. Independent research into whether social media is addictive and harms children’s health has produced mixed results.
The company is also invoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the US legal provision that holds that social platforms are not liable for user-generated content.
The plaintiffs argue the case is not about content, rather how the platforms are designed, including features such as “likes” that encourage social comparison, “infinite scroll” and push notifications.
The Los Angeles case is the first of a series of nine personal injury cases to be heard by jury trial. A second set of federal cases is scheduled for trial in another California federal court in the summer, focused on the knock-on impact of alleged child social media addiction for schools and teachers, among others.
A separate trial began this month for a case brought by the US state of New Mexico against Meta arguing the platform failed to remove child sexual abuse material from its platforms and was a “prime location for predators”.
The accusations followed a months-long undercover investigation in which the office of attorney-general Raúl Torrez created “decoy accounts” posing as children aged 14 and under. Meta maintains there were “ethical compromises” in the way in which the attorney-general conducted the investigation.