A groundbreaking lawsuit against social media companies has dragged the biggest dog in the fight before a jury.
On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg testified in a case — brought by a 20-year-old California woman known only as KGM, who claims that social media caused her anxiety and depression — that could set the precedent for whether or not social media companies are liable for alleged harm their platforms cause children.
It was a powerful face-to-face moment between a regular girl representing millions of young Instagram users and a billionaire who has largely been able to hide from the havoc his platform has wreaked on children all around the world.
In court, Zuckerberg reportedly appeared nervous when asked if Instagram is optimized to encourage as much use as possible.
“You should try and create something useful… and if you do, people will naturally want to use it,” he responded, dodging the question. “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.”
But, as someone who grew up on social media, I can testify that I wasn’t on Instagram because it was useful. I was on it because it was straight-up addictive.
Normal business dynamics provide goods and services. On Instagram, you are the good — your eyeballs and your attention are sold to the highest-bidding advertiser. Nothing about that is “normal.”
During questioning, Zuckerberg also said that “a reasonable company should try to help people who use their services.”
Unfortunately, we’ve known for a long time that Instagram is willing to turn a blind eye to the harm its platform is doing to young people.
All the way back in 2021, the company was exposed for knowing, according to internal documents, that “teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression” and “we make body image worse for one in three teen girls.”
KGM and her family, who are represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center, are alleging that social media platforms like Instagram are deliberately designed to be harmful to children. She first joined before the minimum age of 13 set by the platform.
Asked by a lawyer about why there are so many underage users on Instagram, Zuckerberg said: “There are a set of people who lie about their age in order to use the services” — as though the onus isn’t on him to make signing up for Instagram more difficult than doing a little birth-year arithmetic.
Last week, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri also testified, drawing scrutiny after he said that it’s not possible to say how much Instagram use is too much and referred to it as “a personal thing.”
He also resisted calling KGM’s usage — which was as high as 16 hours a day — addiction. “It’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” he said.
As both Mosseri and Zuckerberg rolled up to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, families who allege their children were harmed by social media gathered outside.
Mary Rodee, whose 15-year-old son shot himself after being targeted in a sextortion scheme, was there on Wednesday and told The Post that Zuckerberg is a “soulless psychopath.”
“I see these kids on a spiraling path where their parents are watching social media take their child away. Mine was just like in an instant,” she said.
A win for KGM would, obviously, be vindication and a symbolic victory for grieving parents and a blow to social media companies, who may be forced to make meaningful changes to their platforms and algorithms.
But it’s not going to solve our society’s unhealthy relationship with social media.
Kids are still growing up with iPads as pacifiers and iPhones as appendages. That can only change if we collectively make an effort to fight back against Big Tech. Courtrooms can’t change private habits.
Schools must continue to ban cell phones, both in classrooms and in common areas.
Parents should follow the “wait till 8th” motto and resist giving their kids addictive devices before 8th grade — and then make use of all age-appropriate parental controls available.
New apps are popping up all the time to keep us all accountable. One new startup, UseLess, connects your screen time limit to your friends. If you want to exceed it, you have to grovel for permission.
I grew up plastered to social media and still have trouble keeping screen time as low as I would like. I’m not saying this is easy.
But you best believe that social media companies will continue to find ways to extract your — and your children’s — attention, even if they have a bad day in LA court.