Zuckerberg Regrets Slow Action On Underage Instagram Users

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has told a California court that he regreted his company’s slow progress in identifying underage users on Instagram, as he came under sharp questioning in a landmark trial over allegations that social media platforms deliberately hooked children.

Testifying on Wednesday, Zuckerberg acknowledged that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, could have acted faster to prevent children under 13 from accessing its platforms.

“I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner,” the 41-year-old tech billionaire told the court, while insisting that the company has since made improvements to its age-verification systems.

Zuckerberg, the most anticipated witness in the Los Angeles trial, also shifted some responsibility for age verification to Apple and Google, arguing that the companies behind the world’s dominant smartphone operating systems should enforce age checks at the device level.

“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,” Zuckerberg said. “It would be pretty easy for them.”

The trial marks the first time Zuckerberg has addressed the safety of his global social media platforms directly before a jury and under oath. According to an AFP journalist in the courtroom, he appeared reserved at first but later became visibly animated and frustrated as questioning intensified.

Plaintiff lawyer Mark Lanier pressed Zuckerberg on internal complaints that Meta was not doing enough to stop underage users from accessing Instagram, despite rules barring children under 13. Zuckerberg responded that the company is now “in the right place” on age verification.

Jurors also heard testimony about Meta’s internal communications, including emails warning that existing safeguards were ineffective and others suggesting that increasing the amount of time users spent on Instagram was a long-standing company objective.

Under questioning from his own lawyers, a more relaxed Zuckerberg described time spent on Meta’s apps as a “side effect” of creating a quality user experience, saying the company’s goal was to “build useful services” that connect people.

The case centres on whether Meta and YouTube, owned by Google, should be held responsible for the mental health problems suffered by Kaley G.M., a 20-year-old California resident who has used social media heavily since childhood.

According to court filings, Kaley began using YouTube at age six, Instagram at nine, and later TikTok and Snapchat. Lanier highlighted that despite Instagram’s age restrictions, Kaley was able to sign up easily.

Zuckerberg was confronted with an internal document stating that Instagram had about four million users under 13 in 2015 and that roughly 30 per cent of U.S. children aged 10 to 12 were on the platform at the time.

Lanier further argued that young users were deliberately exposed to Meta’s efforts to maximise engagement, contradicting Zuckerberg’s previous testimony to the U.S. Congress. Zuckerberg conceded that the company “used to have goals around time,” but said the overriding aim was to create services people found valuable.

The court also heard an old email from former Meta public policy chief Nick Clegg, which stated: “The fact that we say we don’t allow under-13s on our platform, yet have no way of enforcing it, is just indefensible.”

The trial, which is expected to run until late March, will determine whether Meta and Google deliberately designed their platforms to encourage compulsive use among young people, potentially harming their mental health. The outcome is expected to influence thousands of similar lawsuits accusing social media companies of fuelling rising rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and suicide among youths.

TikTok and Snapchat, also named in the lawsuit, reached settlements with the plaintiff before the trial began.

AFP