Mark Zuckerberg Defends Instagram Age Checks at Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended Instagram’s age verification practices on Wednesday in a landmark social media trial that alleges the Meta-owned Instagram and YouTube intentionally designed products to addict young users and caused them mental harm.
Zuckerberg said Instagram has never allowed children under 13 on the platform, but acknowledged there could potentially be “a meaningful number of people who lie about their age in order to use our services,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “There’s a separate and very important question about enforcement, and it’s very difficult.”
The bellwether trial, under way in California Superior Court in Los Angeles, is the first of more than 1,600 similar cases featuring similar claims, and the outcome could have major repercussions for the social media industry.
Kaley G.M, a 20-year-old California woman, alleges that Instagram and YouTube — owned by Meta and Google, respectively — got her hooked on their products as a minor and caused mental health issues, including depressive episodes and suicidal thoughts. Her attorney, Mark Lanier, said his client started accounts on YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at 9, with her use of Instagram climbing up to 16 hours a day, according to CNN.
The plaintiff sued four social media companies in 2023, settling with TikTok and Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, last month for undisclosed terms.
According to the Times, Lanier “showed an internal document from 2018 suggesting that Instagram believed about 4 million users were under 13 — roughly 30% of all 10 to 12-year-olds in the U.S. at the time.”
“There’s a distinction about whether someone is allowed to do something and whether we’ve caught them for breaking the rule,” Zuckerberg said at one point. “I don’t see why this is so complicated. It’s been our clear policy that people under the age of 13 are not allowed.”
Earlier in his questioning, Lanier said that people can either help vulnerable people, ignore them, or “prey upon them and use them for our own ends,” according to the AP,
“I think a reasonable company should try to help the people that use its services,” Zuckerberg said.
Lanier also asked about an internal document urging Zuckerberg to try and come across on social media as not “fake, robotic, corporate or cheesy” in his communication. Zuckerberg framed the advice as just “feedback.” As for public speaking, Zuckerberg said, “I think I’m actually well known to be sort of bad at this.”
One of Meta’s other products came up during Zuckerberg’s testimony. Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl instructed attendees that they could not wear Meta AI glasses, according to the Times.
“If your glasses are recording, you must take them off,” the judge said. “It is the order of this court that there must be no facial recognition of the jury. If you have done that, you must delete it. This is very serious.”
Zuckerberg has testified before Congress, but this is his first time doing so at a jury trial. Parents have traveled to the courthouse for Zuckerberg’s appearance, which also drew throngs of reporters.
Lanier argued in his opening statements last week that internal Google documents revealed staffers referred to features as “slot machines.” He also pointed to Meta documents that showed employees had twice said its methods reminded them of tobacco companies, which have faced similar claims of intentionally hooking people to addictive substances.
The case, Lanier told jurors, is as easy as “ABC: Addicting, brains, children.”
A Meta spokesperson told TheWrap that the jury must decide “whether Instagram was a substantial factor in the plaintiff’s mental health struggles.”
“The evidence will show she faced many significant, difficult challenges well before she ever used social media,” the spokesperson said. Paul Schmidt, Meta’s lawyer, also argued last week that Kaley’s mental health issues stemmed from familial abuse, not its apps.
Zuckerberg’s appearance came a week after Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said social media use was not “clinically addictive.” He explained that “there’s always trade-off between safety and speech” and that the company tries “to be as safe as possible and censor as little as possible.”
Lanier questioned Mosseri about some of the company decisions, asking him about 2019 documents that showed executives urged Mosseri and Zuckerberg against lifting a ban on beauty filters. “We would rightly be accused of putting growth over responsibility,” one former executive told Mosseri, who reversed the ban with Zuckerberg‘s support.
Other executives expected to testify include YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, whose company’s attorney argued last week that YouTube was “not trying to get in your brain and rewire it.” Instead, YouTube lawyer Luis Li said, the service acted more like an entertainment platform, such as Netflix.
“It’s just asking you what you like to watch,” Li said.
Li, in a statement provided by Google, said the case will show the plaintiff “is not addicted to YouTube and never has been.”
Zuckerberg’s testimony comes as Meta grapples with a trial under way in New Mexico. State Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleges that the company failed to safeguard children from sexual exploitation, a claims Meta rejects.
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