Instagram chief admits touting teen safety tool while omitting it was barely used
Meta's business model revolves around selling advertising, and the company earns more when users spend more time on its apps
Adam Mosseri, Instagram's chief at Meta, admitted in a California courtroom that he promoted safety tools for teens without revealing their low usage rates from early testing. The trial, expected to last through late September, comes amid accusations from 29 US states that Meta designed its platforms to hook children and gather their data while misleading the public.
Mosseri testified that an 90% rate of teens keeping reminder features on was a 'disappointing' low adoption rate that has since improved. However, internal Meta data showed that Take a Break, which allows users to set reminders to stop scrolling, had only a 1.8% adoption rate, while Quiet Mode, which silences late-night notifications, reached just 8.7%.
Mosseri claimed the company did not disclose the low adoption but later turned on the features by default in Teen Accounts, which launched in 2024.
Written by urgent.news from The Hindu - Sci-Tech's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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