14:17Machine-translated from Azerbaijani by AIRead in Azerbaijani
Instagram Head Tells Court: “I Never Asked My Team to Hide Information”
Instagram head Adam Mosseri has testified in the ongoing social media addiction trial against Meta. According to internal documents revealed in court, Instagram employees were instructed not to present Mosseri with certain statistics concerning teen safety. Mosseri said he was unaware of such an instruction. In the lawsuit filed against Meta by the attorneys general of dozens of US states, the company is accused of encouraging children and teenagers to spend more time on its platforms. The plaintiffs say Meta continued using mechanisms that increased their dependence on the apps despite knowing from its own internal research that its platforms could negatively affect young users. One of the key documents discussed in court was a presentation about teen safety prepared by Instagram employees in 2023. It also stated that content Instagram did not consider appropriate to recommend to teenagers was seen by teenagers 1.5 times more often than by adults. However, according to internal correspondence presented in court, one of the company’s lawyers asked employees to remove these statistics from the presentation. The reason given was to “limit Mosseri’s exposure” to this information.
Mosseri told the court that this information was new to him. He said he had never asked his team to hide information and had not participated in discussions about what information he should or should not see. According to Mosseri, the lawyers may have reviewed the documents to verify their accuracy and compliance with legal requirements. Instagram Product Design Director Francesco Fogu previously testified that the instruction to conceal information from management had surprised him. However, Fogu said the information could be conveyed to management verbally and that the statistics were also included in other reports featured in the presentation. Instagram’s “Take a Break” feature, which reminds users to take a break from the app, was also discussed in court. According to Meta’s data, only 1.8% of Instagram users initially enabled the feature after it launched in 2021. Former Meta data specialist George Volichenko said the rate was even lower among teenagers. According to him, initial data showed that only 0.165% of teenagers enabled the option to take a 10-minute break from Instagram. The figure later rose to approximately 0.2%. Although Mosseri acknowledged that usage of the feature was low, he emphasized that Instagram had taken broader measures to protect teenagers. He noted that time limits are enabled by default on teen accounts for users under 16.
Mosseri told the court that this information was new to him. He said he had never asked his team to hide information and had not participated in discussions about what information he should or should not see. According to Mosseri, the lawyers may have reviewed the documents to verify their accuracy and compliance with legal requirements. Instagram Product Design Director Francesco Fogu previously testified that the instruction to conceal information from management had surprised him. However, Fogu said the information could be conveyed to management verbally and that the statistics were also included in other reports featured in the presentation. Instagram’s “Take a Break” feature, which reminds users to take a break from the app, was also discussed in court. According to Meta’s data, only 1.8% of Instagram users initially enabled the feature after it launched in 2021. Former Meta data specialist George Volichenko said the rate was even lower among teenagers. According to him, initial data showed that only 0.165% of teenagers enabled the option to take a 10-minute break from Instagram. The figure later rose to approximately 0.2%. Although Mosseri acknowledged that usage of the feature was low, he emphasized that Instagram had taken broader measures to protect teenagers. He noted that time limits are enabled by default on teen accounts for users under 16.