Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday repeatedly said during a landmark trial over youth social media addiction that the Facebook and Instagram operator does not allow children under 13 on its platforms, despite being confronted with evidence suggesting they were a key demographic.
Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the woman suing Instagram and Google’s YouTube for harming her mental health when she was a child, pressed Zuckerberg over his statement to Congress in 2024 that users under 13 are not allowed on the platform. Lanier confronted Zuckerberg with internal Meta documents.
The case involves a California woman who started using Instagram and YouTube as a child. She alleges the companies sought to profit by hooking children on their services despite knowing social media could harm their mental health. She alleges the apps fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts and is seeking to hold the companies liable.
Meta and Google have denied the allegations and pointed to their work to add features that keep users safe.
“If we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens,” read one internal Instagram presentation from 2018.
“And yet you say that we would never do that,” said Lanier.
Zuckerberg replied that Lanier was “mischaracterizing what I am saying”. The CEO said Meta has “had different conversations over time to try to build different versions of services that kids can safely use”. For example, he said Meta discussed creating a version of Instagram for children under 13, but ultimately never did.
Meta faces potential damages at the jury trial in Los Angeles, part of a wave of litigation against social media companies in the US, where cases are beginning to go to trial amid a broader global backlash over the platforms’ effect on young users.
Meta’s rivals Snap Inc. and TikTok settled with the plaintiff before the trial kicked off last week.
In one email, Nick Clegg, who was Meta’s vice-president of global affairs, told Zuckerberg and other top executives, “we have age limits which are unenforced (unenforceable?)” and noted different policies for Instagram versus Facebook make it “difficult to claim we are doing all we can”.
Zuckerberg responded by saying that it is hard for app developers to verify user age and that the responsibility should be on the makers of mobile devices. Teens on Instagram are estimated to make up less than 1 percent of revenue, he testified.
Source: France24
