Chief Executive Officer of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has acknowledged that the company moved too slowly in addressing the presence of underage users on Instagram, as he testified in a major social media trial in the United States.
Speaking under oath in a California courtroom on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said he regretted the pace at which Meta improved its systems for identifying children under 13 on Instagram, a platform that officially prohibits users below that age. “I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner,” he told the court, while noting that the company has since strengthened its safeguards.
The trial, taking place in California, marks the first time Zuckerberg has personally addressed concerns about the safety of Meta’s platforms before a jury. The case is part of a broader wave of lawsuits filed by American families accusing major tech companies of exposing children to harmful and addictive online experiences.
During intense questioning by plaintiff lawyer Mark Lanier in Los Angeles, Zuckerberg faced internal company emails suggesting that Instagram had millions of underage users despite existing rules. Some internal communications also raised concerns that age verification systems were ineffective.
Zuckerberg admitted that Meta previously tracked goals related to how long users spent on its apps but maintained that the company’s central mission has always been to build services that connect people.
Zuckerberg argued in court that stronger age verification should be implemented at the smartphone level by Apple and Google, rather than leaving each app to handle verification independently.
“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,” he said.
The case centers on claims that prolonged exposure to social media contributed to mental health struggles experienced by a young California user who reportedly began using YouTube as a child and later joined Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.
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