Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared in New Mexico’s civil trial about alleged harms to children from social media, with jurors watching deposition footage that prosecutors said reflected what Facebook and Instagram’s parent learned internally and how it responded. The deposition, recorded last year and shown during the fourth week of the trial, was aimed at exploring the company’s knowledge of negative experiences among young users and its response to safety concerns on its platforms.
New Mexico’s attorney general alleges that Meta violated state consumer protection laws by failing to disclose what it knew about dangers including addiction to social media and the risk of child sexual exploitation on company platforms. Meta’s legal team countered that the company does disclose risks and takes steps intended to reduce harmful content and experiences, while also conceding that some problematic material can still pass through its safety systems.
Prosecutors confronted Zuckerberg in the deposition with internal company communications and emails from platform users that span back to the early period of Facebook, according to the trial record played for jurors. Previn Warren, identified as a member of the prosecution team, asked Zuckerberg whether users had repeatedly told the company and Zuckerberg personally that Meta’s products were addictive.
“Over the past 15 years, users of your products have repeatedly told your company and you personally that they find the products to be addictive, that’s true isn’t it?” Warren asked Zuckerberg in the deposition video. Zuckerberg took issue with the term “addictive,” saying in response that people sometimes use the word colloquially and that it is not how he views the products or how they work.
Zuckerberg said at the same time that he wants Meta to understand user experiences so the company can improve the products. He also testified in the deposition about his view of how engagement goals evolved at the company, conceding that he initially set goals for employees to increase the amount of time teenagers spent on the platform during the earlier years.
“Yes, I think we focused on time spent as one of the major engagement goals,” Zuckerberg said in the deposition. He added that sometime during 2017 and afterward, Meta shifted focus to other metrics, describing that as the approach “for, at this point, most of the last 10 years.” The trial record also included questions about other safety decisions connected to Instagram features.
In the deposition, prosecutors asked Zuckerberg about his decision to lift a temporary Instagram ban on cosmetic filters that change how people look in ways that prosecutors said appeared to promote plastic surgery. Zuckerberg responded that he cared about not cracking down on how people express themselves and said there had been pressure to censor services, adding that he did not find the anecdotal examples prosecutors used convincing as clear evidence that the filter changes would be harmful.
The trial also examined how Meta’s policies apply to minors. The deposition materials discussed that Meta prohibits children under 13 from using its platforms, while prosecutors said some minors still manage to sign up anyway. In a related segment in the trial, jurors also watched a video in which prosecutors questioned Instagram head Adam Mosseri about Meta’s safety approach.
Prosecutors asked Mosseri about Meta’s approach to safety, corporate profits, and social media features, including policies for young users that might contribute to unwanted communications with adults. The New Mexico case and a separate Meta trial in Los Angeles could shape arguments in thousands of similar lawsuits accusing social media companies of harming children, prosecutors said through the framing of the bellwether litigation.
Zuckerberg testified last month in Los Angeles about young people’s use of Instagram and answered questions from Congress about youth safety on Meta’s platforms. In his 2024 congressional testimony, the trial record said he apologized to families whose lives were upended by tragedies they believed were caused by social media, saying he was “sorry for everything you have all been through” but not taking direct responsibility for those tragedies.