Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri to Testify in Major Meta Child Safety Trial

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri took the stand Tuesday in a landmark trial over whether META designed Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to children, testifying in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

The case consolidates lawsuits from 29 U.S. states, filed in October 2023, alleging Meta knowingly built products that hook young users through features such as infinite scroll, autoplay and personalized algorithmic feeds while telling the public its platforms were safe. Four states, California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, have made the most specific addiction and harm accusations within the broader coalition.

The trial, which began around August 19, is expected to run six to eight weeks before an eight-member jury. Mosseri has led Instagram since 2018 and is one of several Meta executives expected to testify, alongside CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CFO Susan Li. In his testimony, Mosseri pushed back on characterizing the platform's design as addictive, distinguishing clinical addiction from what he called "problematic use," and said Instagram tries "to focus on the most important issues" as its products and policies evolve.

The financial stakes are large and disputed: the states have said they are seeking roughly $200 billion in civil penalties, while Meta has argued in filings that the states' claims could actually total as much as $1.4 trillion, a figure legal experts have called extremely unlikely to materialize. Investors and regulators will be watching how Mosseri's and Zuckerberg's testimony shapes the jury's view of Meta's design choices, and whether the outcome sets a precedent for how Meta and other platforms design products for younger users going forward.

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