Instagram chief tells addiction trial few teenagers knew of safety feature

The top executive at Instagram says few teenagers used a key safety feature to limit their use before it was turned on by default, at a trial over whether Meta deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to young users.

The federal court trial in California is one of the highest-profile tests of allegations that social media companies have harmed teenagers.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram since 2018, denied any suggestion by US states suing Meta that Instagram stalled by not making the Take a Break feature the default setting for teenagers until September 2024, nearly three years after its launch.

The feature encourages users to close Instagram after set periods of time.

Under questioning from Jason Slothouber, an attorney for Colorado, Mr Mosseri acknowledged that the percentage of teenagers using Take a Break was in the low-single digits before Instagram made it the default.

Mr Mosseri estimated in a December 2021 blog post when Take a Break was launched that in early tests more than 90 per cent of teenage users who turned the feature on kept it on. 

"Most teens didn't want it," Mosseri said on the fourth day of a trial in Oakland, California, federal court. 

"We decided to push forward with it anyway."

Mr Mosseri is a central witness in the lawsuit by 29 US states.

States accuse Meta of addictive design

Four of the states — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — have accused Meta of designing the platforms to hook young users, fuelling anxiety, depression and even suicide, while misleading consumers about their safety.

All 29 states say Meta violated federal law by improperly collecting and using personal data of children under 13 while they used its platforms.

The states have indicated they could seek nearly $US200 billion in civil penalties.

Meta has rejected accusations it sought to addict children, and said its research showed no clear link between adolescents' social media use and a lack of wellbeing.

Instagram denies hiding safety data

Under questioning by Mr Slothouber, Mr Mosseri rejected the idea that he knew of an alleged Meta policy for lawyers to review internal presentations to scrub information from them, or shield him from problems.

Mr Mosseri said it was important that any information Instagram had about children's safety that became public be high-quality, and backed by experts.

"I am not trying to encourage my team to hide anything," Mr Mosseri said. 

"I want to understand how things work. I can't think of any time that I've encouraged people to bring less information to me."

Mr Mosseri also said Instagram centralised people working on sensitive research about teenagers to a single team and reduced access to the information across the company following the 2021 leak of the so-called Facebook Files.

That leak came from whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who said Meta knew its ⁠products were unsafe for children but did nothing in order to pursue higher profit.

Design chief acknowledges safety data removal

Prior to Mr Mosseri's testimony, Instagram director of product design Francesco Fogu testified about a presentation on teenagers' safety that his team prepared in 2023 for Instagram leadership.

Under questioning from Mr Slothouber, Mr Fogu acknowledged the removal of data from a presentation slide showing that teenage Instagram users saw 1.5 times more bullying, suicide, hate, nudity and violent content than adult users.

Later, when questioned by a Meta attorney, Mr Fogu said the figure appeared on a different slide.

Mr Fogu also said Instagram knew that fewer people would use Take a Break by not making it the default setting.

Mr Mosseri also testified in February in a Los Angeles trial that Instagram cared about children's safety, defending its design choices against allegations by company insiders that its features were harmful.

Jurors in that case found Meta and Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google negligent in designing their platforms, and ordered them to pay $US6 million to a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child.

Earlier this month, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $US567 million to address teenagers' mental health after that state's attorney general called its platforms a public nuisance.

Tennessee is also suing Meta, raising similar claims about Instagram, in a case on trial in Nashville.

Mid-trial settlement reportedly discussed

Meta and state attorneys general discussed a potential mid-trial settlement of a lawsuit accusing the company of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to young users, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, local time, citing people familiar with the matter.

Several state attorneys general put out advisories notifying the media of plans for press conferences, including Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, whose office said it planned to announce "a major consumer protection settlement involving a leading technology company".

Meta and the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The trial was estimated to last about six weeks.

Otherwise, jurors are expected to issue an advisory verdict. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will decide whether Meta is liable and, if so, determine any civil penalties and changes to Facebook and Instagram.