Jurors in a bellwether trial about the impacts of social media on children watched a deposition of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday that explored what the architects of Facebook and Instagram knew from internal research about the negative experiences of young users and how the company responded.
New Mexico’s attorney general alleges that Meta violated state consumer protection laws in failing to disclose what it knew about the dangers of addiction to social media as well as child sexual exploitation on the company’s platforms. Attorneys for Meta say the company discloses risks and makes efforts to weed out harmful content and experiences — acknowledging that some bad material still gets through its safety net.
In the pretrial deposition recorded last year, prosecutors confronted Zuckerberg with internal company communications and emails from platform users spanning back to the infancy of Facebook in 2008 that discuss “problematic” and addictive use of social media.
“Over the past 15 years, users of your products have repeatedly told your company and you personally that they find the products to be addictive, that’s true isn’t it?” Previn Warren, a member of the prosecution team, asked Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg took issue with the word “addictive.”
“I think people sometimes use that word colloquially,” he said “That’s not what we’re trying to do with the products, and it’s not how I think they work.”
At the same time, Zuckerberg said he wants to “make sure that we can understand so we can improve the products and make them better for people in ways that they want.”
Zuckerberg went on to concede that he initially set goals for employees to increase the amount of time teenagers spent on its platform amid efforts to expand business revenue and the number of platform users.
“Yes, I think we focused on time spent as one of the major engagement goals,” Zuckerberg said. “Sometime during 2017 and beyond — for, at this point, most of the last 10 years — we’ve focused on other metrics.”
The deposition also delved into Zuckerberg’s decision to lift a temporary Instagram ban on the use of cosmetic filters that changed people’s appearance in a way that seemed to promote plastic surgery.
“I care a lot about not cracking down on the ways that people can express themselves and there’s, like, always been a lot of pressure to do that and censor our services,” Zuckerberg said. “I didn’t find any of the anecdotal examples that people used to be convincing that it was actually clear evidence that this was going to be harmful.”
The deposition was shown during the fourth week of the civil trial. Meta, which also owns WhatsApp, prohibits children under 13 from using its platforms, but some manage to sign up anyway.
On Tuesday, the New Mexico jury watched a video in which prosecutors peppered Instagram head Adam Mosseri with questions about Meta’s approach to safety, corporate profits and social media features. They also asked him about policies for young users that might contribute to unwanted communications with adults.
The New Mexico case and a separate trial against Meta in Los Angeles could set the course for thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies.
Zuckerberg testified last month in Los Angeles about young people’s use of Instagram and has answered questions from Congress about youth safety on Meta’s platforms.
During his 2024 congressional testimony, he apologized to families whose lives had been upended by tragedies they believed were caused by social media. But while he told parents he was “sorry for everything you have all been through,” he stopped short of taking direct responsibility for it.
—Morgan Lee, Associated Press