Meta Knew Teen Safety Tools Were Ineffective, Witnesses Testify
Witnesses said Meta’s teen safety tools had adoption rates of 1.8% and 8.7% and were not turned on by default.
- At the United States Courthouse in Oakland, Meta faces a coalition of 29 states defending against allegations it deliberately designed products to hook children while gathering their data. The trial entered its second week on Monday.
- Meta's business model relies on advertising revenue, incentivizing longer user engagement. Internal documents indicate enabling safety features by default would cause a 'notable negative impact' on user engagement, leading leadership to decline turning on Quiet Mode by default for younger teens.
- Adoption rates for Take a Break reached 1.8 percent, while Quiet Mode reached 8.7 percent, according to internal Meta documents shown to jurors. Former engineering director Arturo Bejar testified that 'In my experience, 'Take a Break' is a feature that's designed to fail.'
- Under questioning on Tuesday, Francesco Fogu, Meta's director of product design at Instagram, conceded the company 'knew adoption rates would be lower' when tools were not turned on by default. States seek around $200 billion in penalties.
- The trial is expected to continue through late September, with high-profile testimony pending. Instagram head Adam Mosseri is scheduled to testify, alongside CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is also expected to take the stand.
14 Articles
14 Articles
Meta, US states have discussed settling teen social media harm case, Bloomberg News reports
Aug 25 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms and state attorneys general have discussed a potential mid-trial settlement of a lawsuit accusing the company of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to young users, Bloomberg News reported o...
Instagram chief admits Meta omitted weak teen safety tool uptake
Adam Mosseri, who oversees Instagram at Meta, admitted in a California court on Tuesday that he touted newly launched safety tools for teens without disclosing low adoption rates from early testing several years ago. When asked if Meta disclosed its low adoption, which only reached 1 or 2 percent of the accounts, Mosseri admitted the company did not but said the safety features were later turned on by default in Teen Accounts, which have parenta…
Meta faces a trial in the United States where 29 states accuse her of hiding the risks of Instagram for teenagers.
Meta knew that Instagram's tools to protect adolescents were ineffective, said witnesses during the trial in which 29 American states accused the social media giant of lying about the risks of the platform. Want to live away? See interactive guide that gathers information about 36 deadly Trend countries: videos of young people driving on the counter put TikTok under pressure after seven deaths in the UK With more than 3 billion users in the worl…
Meta knew teen safety tools were ineffective, witnesses testify
With more than three billion users around the world, Meta is fending off accusations by the coalition of US states that it deliberately designed its products to hook children and gather their data while misleading the public. The trial entered its second week on Monday and is expected to last through late September. Internal Meta documents shown to jurors said that Take a Break, which allows users to set reminders to stop scrolling, reached an a…
At the trial of the digital giant in California, two witnesses said that the company knew that its youth protection tools were not working.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 38% of the sources are Center, 37% of the sources lean Right
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
