Meta sits in the defendant’s dock in the trial taking place in Oakland (California), for the lawsuit claiming that the Facebook and Instagram applications of Mark Zuckerberg’s company knowingly harmed the mental health of children and adolescents. All for business, would be their motto according to the attorneys general of 29 U.S. states and an internal witness.
During the first two days of the oral hearing, the spotlight from the witness stand was on Arturo Béjar, a Mexican security engineer who held high-level positions at Meta for about eight years, in two periods. Once he left the company in 2021, he has been an outspoken critic of Meta’s practices regarding child welfare. He has already testified before a U.S. Senate committee and in another case related to social networks involving harm to minors.
But on this occasion, he was much more forceful and emphasized that the company knew the harmful potential of its products and that Zuckerberg lied when expressing concern for the safety of minors. Meta adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy regarding the safety of children on its social media platforms.
Meta adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy regarding the safety of children
Although there have been other trials, the one currently underway is considered the most significant for this tech giant. If it loses, in addition to a fine that could reach $1.4 trillion, the matter has the full potential to fundamentally change how the company’s social media platforms operate.
One of Béjar’s motivations to act as a whistleblower was to see how his own teenage daughter was treated on Instagram. He recounted that she received unwanted sexual advances and photos of male genitals, as well as misogynistic insults. Later, his daughter told him that reporting these abuses through Instagram’s established procedures was ineffective or outright impossible.
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Béjar emphasized that he began conducting surveys about teenagers’ experiences on that platform. He found that 51% of users answered yes when asked if they had negative or harmful experiences during the previous seven days. In his testimony, he stated that, of all that content, Instagram only removed 0.02%.
The former employee reported harmful experiences confessed by users to the company and was ignored
He also highlighted that he sent those results to top executives, including Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s CEO, who are expected to be called to testify, without being heeded.
Meta’s lawyer, who defended the company’s practices, tried to downplay that confession by highlighting the good working relationship the engineer maintained both with the company and its leaders. Béjar responded with brief “yes” answers to questions about the support he received from Zuckerberg or whether he was still proud of the work in partnership.
However, the witness insisted that the company consistently prioritized profits over the safety design of its products, so everything focused on how long people used them, even if it was to the detriment of their mental health. “If you move away from the product, you won’t make money,” Béjar emphasized as Meta’s philosophy.
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