Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram owned by Meta, testified at a federal trial in Oakland, California, where the company is accused by four states of deliberately designing addictive features for children, contributing to the youth mental health crisis. Twenty-nine states had sued Meta in 2023, with four currently at trial and the remaining twenty-five to be tried later. The ‘take a break’ feature, designed to encourage young users to step away from the app, had low adoption rates until Meta made it the default setting for teenage accounts in 2024. A former employee, George Volichenko, testified that his team recommended making this feature automatic for younger teens, but the request was rejected due to its negative impact on engagement metrics. Earlier this year, a trial in Los Angeles found Meta and Google liable and awarded 6 million dollars to a plaintiff identified only by her initials, KGM, for harms caused by their platforms.
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