Ex-Meta Engineer Testifies Instagram Ignored Underage Users

A landmark trial examining Meta's handling of child safety on its platforms heard explosive testimony on Wednesday from a former engineering director. Arturo Béjar told a federal court in Oakland, California, that Instagram operated with a "don't ask, don't tell" approach regarding children under the age of 13, the platform's minimum age requirement.

Béjar, who previously testified before Congress about teen mental health, stated that Meta consistently prioritized profit over user well-being. He argued that product design focused on maximizing usage time and frequency, even when those metrics were detrimental to mental health. "If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money," he said.

The trial, initiated by the states of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, accuses Meta of knowingly designing addictive features that harm young users and of collecting data on children without parental consent. The states are seeking injunctions and financial penalties that could reach billions of dollars.

Béjar's testimony detailed how employee performance reviews were tied to user engagement numbers, making safety an "afterthought." He identified features like video autoplay and popularity counters as "inherently unsafe for teenagers," who are more susceptible to social comparison.

He also claimed that despite Meta's sophisticated infrastructure, the company had "no goals, no metrics" to identify and remove accounts belonging to children under 13, even though their presence was "common knowledge." Béjar criticized the company's safety tools, such as the "Take a Break" feature, as "designed to fail" because they require users to opt-in and can be dismissed easily.

Meta has denied the allegations, with its legal team asserting that the company takes its responsibility to teen safety seriously and will present evidence of its commitment during the trial, which is expected to last about six weeks.