Kid safety trial hears Instagram chief’s frustration over safety feature, ex-Meta employee who quit over ‘values’

Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram under parent company Meta, defended the platform's safety record during testimony on Tuesday in a federal trial in Oakland, California. The trial, which will span approximately six weeks, pits Meta against the states of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey. These states accuse Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms.

During the trial, Jason Slothouber, a prosecutor for the Colorado Attorney General's Office, questioned Mosseri about the low adoption rate of the "take a break" feature among teenagers. The feature prompts users to step away if they've been scrolling for an extended period. Despite its initial low usage, Meta introduced separate teen accounts in 2024, which made the feature the default setting for teenage users.

Mosseri became frustrated with Slothouber's focus on a single safety feature, stating, "There are many features we launch over many aspects of safety and well-being" that the company strives to improve.

The four-state lawsuit is one of 29 cases filed against Meta in 2023 over child safety and privacy. The other 25 cases will go to trial later. Meta also faces lawsuits in state courts, including a current trial in Tennessee. Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018, testified for about an hour and is scheduled to return to the stand on Wednesday.

He is also set to testify in a separate state court trial in Los Angeles, where a 20-year-old plaintiff alleged she became addicted to social media as a child. Meta and Google were found liable for causing harm to the plaintiff, and she was awarded $6 million in damages.

Former Meta employee George Volichenko, who worked on Instagram's mental well-being team from 2022 to 2023, provided testimony regarding the company's values and priorities. He explained that during his tenure, the team was instructed to primarily protect the company from upcoming lawsuits, with limited agency and feedback from leadership.

Volichenko also discussed the "take a break" feature, expressing that his team had advocated for it to be automatically turned on for younger teens, as it would be more likely to be used if it was "opt-out" rather than "opt-in." However, their proposal was not approved, as the tradeoff to core metrics was deemed undesirable. Volichenko ultimately left Meta a second time due to feeling that the company was not aligned with his values.