Meta no longer designs apps to maximize screentime, Zuckerberg says during social media trial

During a Wednesday court appearance, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back on a lawyer’s suggestion that he had misled Congress about the design of the company’s social media platforms, as ‌a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues.

Zuckerberg was questioned on the statements he gave to Congress during a 2024 hearing, when he said the company did not give its teams the goal of maximizing time spent on its apps.

Mark Lanier, a lawyer for a woman who accuses Meta of harming her mental health when she was a child, showed ​jurors emails from 2014 and 2015 in which Zuckerberg laid out aims to increase time ​spent on the app by double-digit percentage points.

Zuckerberg said that while Meta previously had goals related to the amount of time users spent on the app, it has since changed its approach.

“If you are trying to ​say my testimony was not accurate, I strongly disagree with that,” Zuckerberg said.

The appearance was the billionaire Facebook ⁠founder’s first time testifying in court ⁠on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users.

While Zuckerberg has previously testified on the subject before Congress, the stakes are higher at ​the jury trial in Los Angeles. Meta may have ​to pay damages if it loses the case, and the verdict could erode Big Tech’s long-standing legal defence against claims of user harm.

• Just Asking wants to know: What questions do you have about social media addiction? What do you want to know about holding social media companies accountable? Send us your questions ahead of our Feb. 21 show. 

The lawsuit and others like ​it are part of a global backlash against social media platforms over children’s ⁠mental health.

Australia ‌has prohibited access to social media platforms for users under age 16, and other countries including Spain are considering similar curbs. In the U.S., Florida has prohibited companies from allowing users under 14. Tech industry trade groups are challenging the law in court.

Who is the woman behind the case?

The case involves a California woman who started using Meta’s Instagram and ⁠Google’s YouTube as a child. She alleges the companies sought to profit by hooking kids on their services despite knowing social media could harm their mental health. She alleges the apps fuelled her depression and ‌suicidal thoughts and is seeking to hold the companies liable.

Meta and Google have denied the allegations, and pointed to their work to add features that keep users safe. Meta has often pointed to a National Academies of Sciences finding that research does not show social media ​changes kids’ mental health.

The lawsuit serves as a test case for similar claims in a larger group of cases against Meta, ⁠Alphabet’s Google, Snap and TikTok. Families, school districts and states have filed thousands of lawsuits in the ⁠U.S. accusing the companies of fuelling a youth mental health crisis.

What is Meta’s defence?

Over the years, investigative reporting ⁠has unearthed internal Meta documents showing the company was aware of potential harms. Meta researchers found that teens who ⁠report that ⁠Instagram regularly made them feel bad about ​their bodies saw significantly more “eating disorder adjacent content” than those who did not, Reuters reported in October.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, testified last week that he was unaware of a ​recent Meta study showing no ⁠link between parental supervision and teens’ attentiveness over their own social media use. Teens with difficult life circumstances more often said they used Instagram habitually or unintentionally, according to the document shown at trial.

Meta’s lawyer told jurors at the trial that the woman’s health records show her issues stem from a troubled childhood, and that ⁠social media was a creative ‌outlet for her.