1 week ago
Instagram Chief Defends Teen Safety Data In Meta Trial
Instagram has tools that are supposed to help teenagers spend less time on the app.
One tool is called Take a Break, and another is called Quiet Mode.
In court, Instagram leader Adam Mosseri said only a small percentage of teenagers used Take a Break at first.
Company documents showed adoption rates of 1.8% for Take a Break and 8.7% for Quiet Mode.
Mosseri had previously said that more than 90% of people who turned on a reminder kept using it.
He explained that this did not mean 90% of all teenagers used the tool.
Former employees said the tools were hard to find or were not turned on automatically.
The states say Meta designed its apps to keep children using them and did not properly explain safety problems.
Meta denies those claims, and the case could lead to large penalties and changes to Instagram and Facebook.
Adam Mosseri acknowledged that early adoption of Instagram’s Take a Break feature was low and that broader adoption figures were not publicly disclosed.
Internal documents showed Take a Break adoption at 1.8%, while Quiet Mode adoption reached 8.7%.
Mosseri said a 90% retention figure applied only to teenagers who had already activated a feature, not to all teenagers.
Former Meta employees said the tools were difficult to find or ineffective, while Meta denied suppressing safety information or intentionally addicting children.
Twenty-nine US states are suing Meta, seeking potentially nearly $200 billion in penalties and changes to its product design.
- Who
- Adam Mosseri, Meta Platforms, former Meta employees, and lawyers for 29 US states are central figures in the case.
- What
- Mosseri testified about low adoption of Instagram’s teen safety tools and denied encouraging employees to hide safety information.
- Where
- The testimony took place in federal court in Oakland, California.
- When
- Mosseri testified on Tuesday, August 25, during the trial’s second week; proceedings are expected to continue through September.
- Why
- The states allege that Meta designed Instagram and Facebook to encourage excessive engagement, collected data from children under 13, and misled the public about safety risks.
State Lawyers and Former Employees
Meta and Instagram
Platform design and engagement
State Lawyers and Former Employees
The states allege that Meta deliberately designed Instagram and Facebook to foster compulsive use among young people, contributing to mental-health harms and increasing engagement.
Meta and Instagram
Meta rejects the claim that it sought to addict children and says its research found no clear link between adolescent social-media use and a lack of well-being.
Use of safety tools
State Lawyers and Former Employees
State lawyers and former employees argued that low adoption was foreseeable because Take a Break and Quiet Mode were difficult to find or were not enabled by default; one former engineer called Take a Break a feature designed to fail.
Meta and Instagram
Mosseri said Instagram moved forward with the tool even though most teenagers initially did not want it, and said usage later improved through protections included in Teen Accounts.
Disclosure of safety information
State Lawyers and Former Employees
The states questioned why low adoption figures were not publicly disclosed and raised concerns that data was removed from a presentation about harmful content seen by teenagers.
Meta and Instagram
Mosseri denied encouraging employees to hide information, while Francesco Fogu said the disputed data appeared on another slide; Meta says it does not release every internal metric.
Key facts
- Take a Break adoption
- Internal documents showed that 1.8% of teen users had turned on the feature; Mosseri described early usage as being in the low single digits.
- Quiet Mode adoption
- Internal documents showed an adoption rate of 8.7%.
- 90% figure
- The figure referred to users who had activated a reminder and continued using it, not to 90% of all teenagers.
- Feature launches
- Take a Break was introduced in 2021, and Quiet Mode was launched in 2023.
- Default setting
- Instagram made Take a Break the default for teenagers in September 2024, according to testimony reported in the articles.
- Plaintiffs
- Twenty-nine US states are suing Meta.
- Potential penalties
- The states have indicated that they could seek nearly $200 billion in civil penalties.
Quotes
Adam Mosseri
Meta executive overseeing Instagram, testifying in the California trial
“I am not trying to encourage my team to hide anything. I want to understand how things work. I can't think of any time that I've encouraged people to bring less information to me.”
firstpost.com
“This is one feature with a disappointingly low usage rate, which since this time has significantly improved.”
wionews.com
Sources
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