los angeles — Los Angeles (AFP) – Adam MosseriMeta’s Instagram chief testified Wednesday during a landmark social media trial in Los Angeles that he disagrees with the idea that people can become clinically addicted to social media platforms.
The issue of addiction is a key pillar of the case, as plaintiffs seek to hold social media companies responsible for the harm caused to children who use their platforms. Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube are the remaining defendants in the case TikTok and Snap have stabilized.
At the heart of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose lawsuit could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other prosecutors have been selected for pilot trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments will play out in front of a jury.
Mosseri, from He has been at the helm of Instagram since 2018 He said it’s important to distinguish between clinical addiction and what he called problematic use. However, the plaintiff’s attorney provided direct quotes from Mosseri in a podcast interview a few years ago in which he used the term addiction in relation to social media use, but explained that he may have been using the term “very casually,” as people typically do.
Mosseri said he was not claiming to be a medical expert when asked about his qualifications to comment on the legality of social media addiction, but said someone “very close” to him had suffered from serious clinical addiction, which is why he said he was “careful with my words.”
He and his colleagues use the term “problematic use” to refer to “someone who spends more time on Instagram than they’re comfortable with, and that definitely happens,” he said.
“It is not good for the company, in the long run, to make decisions that benefit us but harm people’s well-being,” Mosseri said.
Mosseri and plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier engaged in a lengthy debate over Instagram beauty filters that changed people’s appearance in a way that appeared to promote plastic surgery.
“We try to be as safe as possible, but we also try to impose as little oversight as possible,” Mosseri said.
In the courtroom, parents of bereaved children who experienced problems on social media appeared visibly upset during a discussion about body distortion and cosmetic filters. Dead all closed Third-party augmented reality filters in January 2025. The judge made an announcement to the public on Wednesday after the emotional display, reminding them not to make any indication of agreeing or disagreeing with the testimony, saying it would be “inappropriate to indicate a position.”
During questioning, Mosseri and Meta’s attorney Phyllis Jones attempted to reframe the idea that Lanier was suggesting in his questioning that the company was looking to Profit from teenagers especially.
Instagram makes less money from teens than any other demographic on the app, Mosseri said, noting that teens tend not to click on ads and that many of them don’t have disposable income to spend on products from the ads they receive. During the opportunity to question Mosseri for a second time, Lanier was quick to point to research showing that people who join social media platforms at an early age are more likely to stay on the platforms longer, which he said makes teen users key to profitable long-term profit.
“A lot of times people try to frame things as either prioritizing safety or prioritizing revenue,” Mosseri said. “It’s really hard to imagine any situation where prioritizing safety isn’t good for revenue.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg He is expected to take the position next week.
In recent years, Instagram has added A large number of features And tools that she says have made the platform safer for young people. But this doesn’t always work. A Last year’s reportFor example, it found that teen accounts created by the researchers were recommending age-inappropriate sexual content, including “graphic sexual descriptions, the use of cartoons to describe degrading sexual acts, and brief displays of nudity.”
In addition, Instagram also recommended “a combination of self-harm, self-harm and body image content” on teen accounts, which the report says is “reasonably likely to lead to negative impacts on young people, including teens with poor mental health, or self-harm and suicidal ideation and behaviours.” Meta called the report “misleading and dangerously speculative” and said it misrepresents her efforts on teen safety.
Meta also faces a separate problem Trial in New Mexico Which started this week.