On Wednesday, former Meta engineering director Arturo Béjar took the stand in a federal trial in Oakland, California, to describe how Instagram allegedly handled users under the age of 13. Béjar, who previously testified before Congress on teen mental‑health concerns, said the platform operated under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” mindset, allowing children to use the service without meaningful age verification.
Profit focus over safety
According to Béjar’s testimony, Meta’s internal metrics emphasized how often and how long people stayed on its apps, rather than the well‑being of its youngest users. “If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he told the jury, underscoring a corporate culture that placed revenue ahead of safety.
Legal backdrop
The case, which began Tuesday, pits Meta against the states of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. Those four states are among 29 that filed lawsuits in 2023 alleging that Meta’s design choices contributed to a youth mental‑health crisis and violated federal child‑privacy law by collecting data on children without parental consent. The remaining 25 states will face trial later, and Meta also confronts separate state‑court actions, including one in Tennessee.
Allegations of harmful design
Béjar said several Instagram features were built for adult engagement and are “inherently unsafe for teenagers.” He cited video autoplay, which can expose teens to potentially harmful content without a click, and engagement counters that reward popularity, a dynamic experts warn can exacerbate teen social‑comparison and anxiety.
Age‑verification shortcomings
While Meta requires users to be at least 13 to create an account, Béjar testified he discovered “tens of thousands” of younger children on Instagram through his own research. He claimed it was “common knowledge” inside the company that under‑13 users were present, yet Meta lacked specific goals or metrics to identify and remove those accounts.
Safety tools that fall short
Meta introduced a “Take a Break” feature in 2021, intended to give users a pause from the app. Béjar argued the tool was designed to fail because it must be manually enabled and can be dismissed with a single tap. “A safety tool has to be on by default,” he said, comparing it to an airbag that drivers must activate each time they drive.
State demands and potential penalties
The plaintiff states are seeking injunctions to change Instagram’s user experience and are also pursuing financial damages that could reach billions of dollars. California’s attorney general noted that any monetary award would be set by the court.
Meta’s response
Meta’s counsel, Paul Schmidt, rejected the allegations, stating that evidence will show the company’s commitment to safety. He emphasized Meta’s responsibility to work with teens and parents in partnership to address concerns about mental health and social‑media use.
The trial is expected to last about six weeks, with further testimony from additional former Meta employees and expert witnesses slated for the coming weeks.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
