Los Angeles [US], February 19 : Meta's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, on Wednesday (local time) testified in a landmark tech addiction case against Meta and YouTube.
He appeared in a California Superior Court of Los Angeles County to defend Instagram, which is owned by Meta, against allegations that it was deliberately designed to be addictive to children and teens.
This case is viewed as one which could set the precedent for whether or not social media companies are liable for alleged harm their platforms cause children.
NYT reported that Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook and has more than 3.5 billion users, has come under fire as one of the biggest providers of platforms for teenagers. There are multiple lawsuits filed by minors, school districts and state attorneys general claiming that social media platforms, much like cigarettes or slot machines at casinos, are addictive and harmful. The tech companies have denied the claims.
The news outlet reported that a 20-year-old Californian, identified as KGM, sued YouTube, TikTok, Snap and Meta in 2023, accusing the companies of engineering their apps to create compulsive use. That led to her body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression, she said. KGM settled with Snap and TikTok for undisclosed terms.
KGM's lawyer, Mark Lanier, said during his opening statement this month that Instagram and YouTube's apps were built like "digital casinos" that profited off addictive behaviour.
Meta said in its opening statement that KGM's mental health issues were caused by familial abuse and turmoil. The company presented medical records to show that social media addiction was not a focus of her therapy sessions.
Confronted with multiple internal documents, Zuckenberg maintained that lawyers were "mischaracterising" the communications, which were presented as part of the groundbreaking trial in which Google's YouTube is also a defendant.
During his testimony on Wednesday in the Los Angeles court, Zuckenberg when asked if Instagram is optimized to encourage as much use as possible responsded with "You should try and create something useful... and if you do, people will naturally want to use it," as reported in the New York Post.
"Our philosophy has always been consistent ... to try to build useful services that people connect to. If we do it well, people will spend more time with our services than other things. It's a pretty normal business dynamic," the outlet cited the Meta chief as saying.
During questioning, Zuckerberg also said that "a reasonable company should try to help people who use their services."