Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed regret over Instagram’s slow progress in identifying underage users during a California social media trial. (Photo: AP)
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday said he regretted the company’s slow progress in identifying underage users on Instagram, as he testified in a closely watched California social media trial accusing platforms of harming children’s mental health. Responding to questions about internal concerns that Meta had not done enough to verify whether users under 13 were on Instagram, Zuckerberg said improvements had been made but added: “I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner.” The appearance marked the first time the Meta chief addressed platform safety issues directly before a jury and under oath. Initially reserved, Zuckerberg later grew more animated during tense exchanges with plaintiff lawyer Mark Lanier, who pressed him on age verification practices and Meta’s past focus on user engagement. During questioning by Meta’s lawyers, Zuckerberg described time spent on the app as a “side effect” of providing a quality user experience. He also argued that age verification should be handled at the smartphone operating system level by Apple and Google rather than by individual apps. “Doing it at the level of the phone is just a lot clearer than having every single app out there have to do this separately,” Zuckerberg said.
Lanier confronted Zuckerberg with internal emails and documents, including warnings from employees that age-verification measures were inadequate and discussions highlighting company goals tied to increasing time spent on Instagram. One internal document presented in court stated that Instagram had four million users under 13 in 2015. Zuckerberg responded that Meta is “in the right place now” on age verification. The trial, expected to run until late March, will determine whether Meta and Google-owned YouTube bear responsibility for alleged mental health harms suffered by Kaley G.M., a 20-year-old California resident who has used social media since childhood. Kaley began using YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine, despite platform rules barring users under 13. The case is seen as a potential benchmark for thousands of lawsuits claiming social media platforms contributed to rising rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and self-harm among young people. TikTok and Snapchat, also named in the complaint, settled before the trial.
