The immense problem of childhood and youth addiction to social networks is the center of the American media and judicial conversation. At the end of January, in which a young woman and her family try to demonstrate that network applications—beyond content—are specifically created to engage. The case of Kaley, as the woman is called, is just the fuse of around 1,500 that intend to go to trial starting this year in which financial and legal responsibility will be demanded from the technological giants. With very wide repercussions, the court case advances this Wednesday with a key statement: that of Mark Zuckerberg. In addition to being CEO of Meta—parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp—Zuckerberg is one of the creators of the internet as we know it, being the inventor of Facebook.
With an estimated fortune of more than 220 million dollars (about 185 million euros), Zuckerberg has testified before the supreme court in Los Angeles, where he arrived around eight-thirty in the morning, very serious, dressed in a dark suit and gray tie. The media and a dozen parents whose children died from problems derived from online addictions were waiting for him. From seven in the morning they demonstrated in front of the courts demanding justice.
Zuckerberg’s simple deposition in the case is an important step, because, although he has testified as much as , where he even apologized for not stopping the spread of political propaganda, it is the first time in his career that he has had to deal with a court. Furthermore, his image is very damaged: the Pew Research Center from a year ago shows that two-thirds of Americans do not have a favorable view of him (in fact, for 26% it is “very unfavorable”). In any case, he would not have direct judicial responsibility—he could not be sentenced to fines or jail—but he speaks on behalf of his company. Both Meta and Google (for being the owner of YouTube) face million-dollar penalties.
As expected, the 41-year-old businessman has defended his company tooth and nail. He has raised eyebrows about the fact that the plaintiff started using Instagram when she was nine years old, saying that she did so in violation of their policy and that they can’t do anything if people lie. Since 2019, the minimum age for access is 13 years old, although 30% of the platform’s users in the United States, around four million, are between 10 and 12, as the victim’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, has shown. The New Yorker has stated that it is not his intention to make more money, because he has donated “almost everything to charities,” and is “focused on giving billions to scientific research”: “The better Meta does, the more capable we will be of research,” he said.
Lawyer Lanier and Zuckerberg had an intense exchange of words. The lawyer asked him if a company should “take advantage” of people who are “less fortunate in terms of educational opportunities” or who come from difficult backgrounds. And the businessman said: “I think a reasonable company should try to help the people who use its services.” Lanier has also asked him about a mail of 2015 where, as a goal for his team, he established that users would spend 10% more time on the network. “We used to set objectives for the teams… but we changed that practice because I don’t think it is the best way to run the company,” he stated, regretting that the email was very old.
For its part, a Meta spokesperson has flatly denied the allegations in a statement and has been “confident” that the evidence will show that they have always been on the side of young people and that, over time, they have made “significant changes” in their favor. He has also stated that “the question that the Los Angeles jury must resolve is whether Instagram was a determining factor in the plaintiff’s mental health problems.” “The evidence will show that she faced many important and difficult challenges long before she started using social media,” he said.
In the packed room, Kaley, the protagonist of the case, was present; On this occasion he has not spoken (he suffers from social anxiety and agoraphobia), but he will testify later, according to his lawyer. Furthermore, precisely the judge in the case, Carolyn B. Kuhl, has asked everyone in court that, if they were wearing Meta glasses—equipped with cameras—they should take them off. “If your glasses are recording, you must take them off. It is the order of this court that the faces of the jurors are not recognized. If they have done so, they must erase it. It is a very serious thing.”
Last week, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram since 2018 and who also worked at Facebook, testified in court. The executive, 43 years old and with a base salary of $900,000 a year (which can exceed $10 and even $20 million, depending on bonuses), insisted that in no case did Instagram try to maximize its profits by using teenagers as targets; In fact, he stated that they make “less money with them than with any other demographic group,” because they don’t pay much attention to ads or have money to spend.
Mosseri acknowledged that the network can generate “problematic use,” but that he did not see it possible to be addicted to it. “It’s relative,” he said, explaining that for some individuals there may be “a stronger use of Instagram than what makes you feel good.” Attorney Lanier let the executive know that his client once spent 16 hours a day on the application. “That does sound like problematic use,” he responded. Mosseri already testified before a US Senate committee in December 2021, where he was in favor of broad general internet regulation, but also willing to improve the security of the platform, beyond parental controls.
The case that the Los Angeles court is hearing is that of Kaley, now 20 years old, also identified under the initials KGM and a native of Chico, a city in the interior of California with about 85,000 inhabitants. Her family and herself have given examples of the immense addiction to these platforms that she suffered since she was little. If her mother took away her phone, she suffered panic attacks. “I think that networks, her addiction to networks, has changed the way her brain works,” Kaley’s mother has said. “He doesn’t have a long-term memory. He doesn’t know how to live without a phone. He’s capable of starting a battle just by touching his phone.” The girl had been using YouTube since she was six years old, Instagram since she was nine (when she had her first iPhone), TikTok (then called Musical.ly) since she was 10, and Snapchat at 11. Actually, common times for children today. According to the lawsuit, he has suffered from anxiety and depression, as well as body dysmorphia.
What the lawyers of this victim argue, as well as those of the hundreds more who will go to trial in California and the United States in the coming months – from individuals to schools – is that beyond the addiction generated by the content, it is the platforms that are designed for this incessant search. Lanier, a lawyer at KGM, compared the existence of beauty filters, the automatic and constant playback of videos and the refined algorithm that knows perfectly what to give each person with “a chemical hit”, internal elements that generate an addiction that leads to depression, harassment, bullying or, in extreme cases, suicide. Experts from youth addiction centers assure that networks are built to generate that addiction, beyond their own content. The complex thing will be to demonstrate that this implies judicial responsibility.
