Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg lamented Wednesday that Instagram It will take so long to take measures to detect users under 13 years of ageduring his testimony in a major social media addiction trial in Los Angeles.
Zuckerberg regrets the delays on Instagram in detecting children
Asked about internal company complaints that not enough was being done to check whether children under 13 were using the platform, Zuckerberg said improvements had been made.
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But “we could have done it sooner,” he added.
The director of Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – was the most anticipated witness in this trial in California, the first in a series of cases that could set a legal precedent for millions of lawsuits. submitted by American families against major social media platforms.
The trial marks the first time the 41-year-old billionaire has spoken out about the security of his globally dominant platforms directly before a jury.
Zuckerberg was very reserved at first, according to an AFP journalist in the room, but then he began to liven up: he showed signs of annoyance, shaking his head and waving his hands as he turned to the jury.
The 12 jurors in Los Angeles listened to increasingly tense testimony as the plaintiff’s attorney, Mark Lanier, pressed Zuckerberg about age verification and his guiding philosophy for decision-making at the massive social media company he controls.
The trial will last until the end of March, when the jury will decide whether YouTube, owned by Google; and Instagram, from Meta; are responsible for mental health problems suffered by Kaley GM, a 20-year-old woman living in California who has been an active user of social networks since childhood.
Testimonials from minors
Kaley GM started using YouTube at age six, Instagram at age 11, and then TikTok and Snapchat.
Instagram doesn’t allow users under 13, and Lanier pressed Zuckerberg about the fact that Kaylee had easily signed up for the platform even though those rules were buried deep in the user agreement, language he said a child couldn’t be expected to read.
“In the right place”
Zuckerberg was shown an internal document stating that Instagram had four million users under the age of 13 in 2015, around the time the plaintiff started using the app, and that 30% of all children between the ages of 10 and 12 in the United States were users.
The CEO of Meta assured that “we are now in the right place” regarding age verification, and that new tools and methods would be added over time.
Lanier then went on to argue that when enforcement was more lax, young people like Kaley were also exposed to Meta’s efforts to increase the time users spent on its globally dominant apps.
Zuckerberg admitted that “we did have time-related goals before,” but stressed that the company’s goal was always “to create useful services that help people connect with the people they want and see the world.”
The trial will determine whether Google and Meta deliberately designed their platforms to encourage compulsive use among young people, thereby harming their mental health.
Judgment still in progress
The case, along with two other trials scheduled in Los Angeles for the middle of this year, seeks to set a standard for resolving thousands of lawsuits that blame social media for fueling an epidemic of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and suicides among young people.
The lawsuit focuses exclusively on the design of the applications, algorithms and personalization functions, since US law grants platforms almost total immunity from liability arising from user-generated content.
TikTok and Snapchat, also named in the lawsuit, reached confidential settlements with the plaintiff before the trial began.
The trial in Los Angeles runs parallel to a similar nationwide case before a federal judge in Oakland, California, which could lead to other litigation in 2026.
Meta also faces a trial this month in the state of New Mexico, where prosecutors accuse the company of prioritizing profits over protecting minors from sexual predators.
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