Zuckerberg grilled in court over social media damage to minors | TechCrunch

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in court on Wednesday in a landmark trial to determine whether the tech giant’s social networking apps are addictive and harmful to teens and children. The trial, held in LA Superior Court, had already revealed that Meta’s own research showed that parental supervision could not prevent teens from compulsively using social media, and that teens who faced traumatic life experiences were even more prone to excessive social media use.

Lawyers for the plaintiff, a 20-year-old girl who goes by the name KGM, asked Zuckerberg this week about whether Instagram employees were given goals to increase daily use of the apps. Meta’s CEO said during an earlier congressional hearing that was not the case, the AP noted, but a 2015 email chain submitted as evidence in the trial showed Zuckerberg pushing to increase users’ time spent on the app by 12%.

Zuckerberg was also asked about Instagram’s use of beauty filters, which Meta’s own experts say should be banned when it comes to teens, as well as internal documents with Meta’s estimates of how many children under the age of 13 were on the platform. One meta document from 2018 stated thathasIn 2015, 4 million children under the age of 13 had Instagram accounts, including, for example, roughly 30% of 10–12 year olds in the US.

Here, Zuckerberg pushed back, saying that age verification is difficult and smartphone manufacturers like Apple could be more helpful in this area. (Apple recently introduced its own age-proofing tools for developers amid growing pressure to regulate apps like Facebook and Instagram in the US, where many states have now created or are developing their own social networking laws.)

Reports from the courtroom noted that Zuckerberg largely stuck to the company’s talking points during his testimony, sometimes arguing that plaintiffs’ lawyers were taking things out of context or mischaracterizing what the documents said.

Plaintiff KGM (who also goes by her first name, Kaley) has sued four social media companies over what she says are the harmful and addictive nature of their platforms. TikTok and Snap settled before the trial began, with YouTube and Meta defending the success of their apps.

During the trial, Meta’s lawyers pointed to Kaley’s unhappy childhood leading to her mental health issues, not the social apps themselves. The results of this jury trial could lead to major tech reforms, spur new laws and regulations, and lead to settlements with victims if tech companies are found to be at fault.