Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Denies Instagram is Addictive in Social Media Trial Testimony

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg denied social media is addictive Wednesday in his testimony at America’s first social media addiction trial.

The highly anticipated case will determine whether social media companies like Meta can be held legally liable for creating addictive products.

The complaint contends Instagram, a social media app owned by Meta, contributed to the social media addiction of a young woman named Kayley (initials KGM). Kayley’s alleged addiction exposed her to child predators and caused her to develop depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia.

The question before the jury is whether Instagram and YouTube, the defendants, are addictive.

Kayley and her lawyers argue the platforms themselves cause addiction with features like infinite scroll, content recommendation algorithms and beauty filters.

Meta and Zuckerberg say the content Kayley saw on Instagram, in addition to her preexisting trauma and mental health conditions, caused her distress — not Instagram’s design.

Importantly, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects online content hosts, like Instagram, from being held liable for content users post to their sites.

Zuckerberg bobbed and weaved with characteristic agility during his testimony Wednesday, staunchly refusing any suggestion Instagram could be addictive.

“I’m not sure what to say to that,” Zuckerberg told Mark Lanier, Kayley’s lawyer, after Lanier asked whether addictive products increase usage. “I don’t think that applies here.”

Zuckerberg focused on convincing the jury Meta does not benefit from addicting its users.

“There’s a misconception that the more attention the company captures, and the more time people spend on its apps, the better it is for Meta’s bottom line, regardless of the harms they may encounter,” NPR paraphrased the Meta founder.

He continued:

If people feel like they’re not having a good experience, why would they keep using the product?

Here, Zuckerberg assumes users can leave Instagram at will. But the crux of the case against Meta is that Instagram is addictive, making it difficult or impossible for dependent users to quit without help.

Kayley’s mom fears social media “has changed the way [her daughter’s] brain works.”

“She has no longer term memory,” she wrote in a filing reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

“She can’t live without a phone. She is willing to go to battle if you were even to touch her phone.”

Meta makes money from monopolizing users’ time — which means the company has financial incentive to make their products addictive.

Internal documents referenced by Lanier show Instagram and Zuckerberg responded to this incentive on several occasions.

In 2016, when Instagram was competing with Snapchat for teen users, Zuckerberg reportedly “directed executives to focus on getting teenagers to spend more time on the company’s platforms,” according to the The New York Times.

Another document from 2018 reads: “If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.” Instagram’s user policy supposedly excludes children under 13 years old.

Zuckerberg argued this incentive structure no longer exists. Now, Instagram focuses on making the platform useful to users.

“If something is valuable, people will use it more because it’s useful to them,” he explained.

But therein lies the problem. Though Instagram may no longer explicitly focus on increasing usage, Zuckerberg’s testimony indicates the amount of time users spend on Instagram remains the platform’s ultimate metric of success.

In other words, Meta still has incentive to make their products addictive — whether Zuckerberg admits it or not.

Meta’s incentive structure speaks to the company’s motivations. If Zuckerberg can help convince the jury Meta does not benefit from addicting its users, then the social media company can claim it has no reason to create harmful products.

The argument is a subtle one, particularly compared to the ever-growing mountain of evidence showing social media harms children.

Meta’s history of releasing faulty or unsubstantial child safety protections further undermines Zuckerberg’s claim Meta does not increase usage at any cost.

When Instagram launched new tools addressing sextortion in October 2024, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) warned:

Mark Zuckerberg and Meta leadership have a very long track record of explicitly making the choice not to rectify harms it knows it is both causing and perpetuating on children … or only doing so when forced by public pressure, bad press or Congressional hearings.

Senator Marsha Blackburn (TN), the author of the bi-partisan Kids Online Safety Act, communicated a similar sentiment in her remarks on Zuckerberg’s testimony.

“To no one’s surprise, Mark Zuckerberg followed his usual playbook of denial and deceit while sitting just a few steps away from parents who have tragically lost their children as a consequence of the way his platforms are designed to harm young users,” Blackburn said, continuing:

These companies are using the same playbook as Big Tobacco did decades ago by trying to keep kids hooked on products that hurt them.

Kayley’s case is the first of nine bellwethers, or test cases, for an estimated 1,600 similar civil cases filed against social media companies in California state court. Trial proceedings for the first of a large group of federal social media addiction cases will begin this summer.

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