In a landmark trial concerning social media addiction, the chief executive of Meta acknowledged that it is “very difficult” to enforce Instagram’s age restrictions. Under sharp questioning, he downplayed the importance of teenage users to the company’s bottom line during his testimony.
The executive stated that while the company has introduced tools to try and identify and remove accounts used by children under the age of 13, he described the issue as a “challenging” problem. “There are a set of people — potentially a meaningful number of people — that lie about their age,” he told the jury in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The trial centers on a 20-year-old woman, identified in court as K.G.M., who blames Instagram and a competing video platform for her years of mental-health struggles. This case is seen as a critical test for thousands of other lawsuits targeting major social media companies. Two other prominent social media firms are not part of this particular trial, having reached confidential settlements with the plaintiff’s lawyers beforehand.
While these companies deny any wrongdoing and maintain they have strong protections for young users, they face potentially massive financial damages if juries rule against them in these initial cases.
K.G.M. was present in court for part of the testimony, though her lawyer had previously explained that sitting through the entire trial would be too traumatic for her. During questioning, which lasted roughly six hours, the Meta executive appeared visibly uncomfortable at times, especially when the plaintiff’s lawyer suggested the company’s main goal was to maximize the time users spend on its apps.
Under questioning from his own company’s lawyer, the CEO testified that teens represent only about 1% of the company’s revenue, which comes almost exclusively from advertising. “Most teens don’t have that much disposable income,” he said. “In terms of our business, I don’t think it’s a meaningful thing in the near term.”
He also explained that Meta eventually adopted a policy requiring new users to enter their date of birth after internal debates about privacy. “I think we got to the right place over time,” he said. “I always wish we could have gotten there sooner.”
The plaintiff’s lawyer, however, presented a different picture. He stated that K.G.M. had an Instagram account when she was just nine years old—a time when, according to internal company documents presented as evidence, Meta was actively seeking to increase user engagement. “You expect the nine-year-old to read all of the fine print?” the lawyer asked.
To emphasize the point, the lawyer’s team displayed a large banner showing thousands of selfies the plaintiff had posted to Instagram during her adolescence. The lawyer also presented a series of internal emails, slides, and messages suggesting the company viewed young users as crucial to its long-term success. One document, from a top policy executive at the time, noted that age limits were largely unenforced, making it “difficult to claim we are doing all we can.”
