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In a courtroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico, prosecutors have started unveiling video depositions from top executives at Meta, aiming to strengthen their case against the social media giant. The trial, which began on Tuesday, focuses on accusations that Meta has not been transparent about the detrimental impacts its platforms, notably Instagram, have on young users.
Central to the state’s argument are depositions from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri. New Mexico’s legal team asserts that Meta has breached state consumer protection laws by failing to adequately address issues such as social media addiction and child exploitation on its platforms, which include Facebook and WhatsApp alongside Instagram.
Prosecutors argue that Meta has not sufficiently disclosed the potential hazards linked to its platforms, including the risk of addiction and exposure to harmful content. These concerns point to broader issues of mental health and safety, particularly for younger users.
In contrast, Meta’s attorney, Kevin Huff, countered these allegations in his opening remarks on February 9. He emphasized the company’s ongoing efforts to eliminate harmful content, cautioning that, despite their diligence, some problematic material can still evade detection. Huff maintained that Meta is committed to informing users about these risks.
During the trial on Tuesday, the jury viewed a video where Mosseri was meticulously questioned by prosecutors. The inquiries delved into Meta’s safety measures, its profit motives, and the specific features of social media that could affect young users. This included discussions on how these features might lead to sleep loss, unwanted interactions with adults, and the adverse impact of beauty filters on self-image.
Counsel for state prosecutors repeatedly asked whether Instagram should do everything it can to keep teens safe.
“I think we should do what we can,” Mosseri said. “I think that there’s over 2 billion people on Instagram, which means there are millions of teens on Instagram. So when you say everything, I want to be clear that we are a large enough platform that sometimes some things will — so for instance, problematic content will be seen.”
Under deposition, Mosseri also said that at Meta “we will prioritize safety over profits.” Prosecutors juxtaposed that assertion with the company’s internal audits, emails and messages about proposed social media features that might change the compulsive use of Instagram by teens or interrupt negative social comparisons, and weren’t always adopted.
Pressured about a decision by Instagram to continue recommending connections with teen accounts to adults amid concerns about child sexual exploitation, Mosseri described the company’s belief in “proportional risk mitigation.”
“We carved out a subset of adults that we thought might be more likely to be problematic,” he said. “We basically tried to identify a subset of adults that might be risky and then remove them from … accounts you should follow.”
Mosseri also talked about the positive powers of social media to connect people, including his own relatives living on different continents. But he also acknowledged that Meta platforms may offer unwanted recommendations — in one instance, content about babies to a woman after miscarriage — and cited Instagram’s “recommendations reset” as a creative solution.
The New Mexico case and a separate trial playing out in Los Angeles could set the course for thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies.
Zuckerberg testified last month in Los Angeles about young people’s use of Instagram and has answered questions from Congress about youth safety on Meta’s platforms.
During his 2024 congressional testimony, he apologized to families whose lives had been upended by tragedies they believed were caused by social media. But while he told parents he was “sorry for everything you have all been through,” he stopped short of taking direct responsibility for it.
Mosseri testified at the California trial that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms — an opinion repeated in the New Mexico courtroom by deposition.
“I’m not a scientist, but I don’t believe the latest science suggests that social media platforms are addictive,” Mosseri said.