Mark Zuckerbergknew children were lying about their ages to use Instagram. What he didn't explain is why Meta was tracking how often they came back.
The Meta chief executive took the stand Wednesday in a Los Angeles courtroom, facing a jury for the first time over claims that Instagram was designed to hook young users. But the real bombshell wasn't his testimony. It was buried inMeta's own internal files.
A 2020 internal review showed that 11-year-olds were four times more likely to keep returning toFacebookthan older users. Instagram's minimum sign-up age is 13.
'People who join Facebook at 11 years old?' plaintiff's lawyer Mark Lanier asked. 'I thought y'all didn't have any of those?'
Zuckerberg didn't have a good answer.
Lanier then pulled up 2015 documents showing roughly 30% of American 10-to-12-year-olds were onInstagram. Another file revealed the company's goal of increasing how long 10-year-olds spend on the app. A 2018 internal memo put it bluntly: 'If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.'
'I don't remember the context of this email from more than 10 years ago,' Zuckerberg responded.
Here's what parents should know. Instagram's internal engagement target was 40 minutes daily in 2023. The company planned to push that to 46 minutes by 2026.
The plaintiff, identified as KGM, started using social media at age six. She was on Instagram by age nine. Court documents show she once spent more than 16 hours on the platform in a single day. Her mother tried using third-party software to block access. It didn't work.
'You expect a 9-year-old to read all of the fine print?' Lanier asked Zuckerberg. 'That's your basis for swearing under oath that children under 13 are not allowed?'
Source: International Business Times UK
