Instagram boss testifies in Meta trial

What's happened

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has testified in a federal trial in Oakland where 29 US states accuse Meta of designing addictive features that harm children and violating child privacy laws. States are seeking large damages and structural changes; prosecutors have shown internal documents and low adoption of safety tools. Mosseri defended improvements and said some tools initially had low uptake.

What's behind the headline?

What the testimony reveals

• Adam Mosseri has acknowledged that Instagram’s safety tools had very low early adoption: internal tests showed Take a Break adoption around 1.8% and Quiet Mode around 8.7%. He has said the company later increased defaults for Teen Accounts.
• Mosseri has defended Meta’s record, saying teams have improved protections and that some features did not change usage patterns immediately. He has denied directing staff to hide information from him.

Where the case is headed

• The states are pursuing both damages and structural remedies. If the court orders major design changes or large penalties, Meta will face operational constraints that will force product redesigns and stricter age-assurance practices.
• Evidence of internal metrics and testimony from former employees will push the judge and jury to weigh whether Meta’s public claims matched internal realities. That gap is the central legal lever states are using.

Likely consequences

• A ruling against Meta will force the company to change defaults, notifications and algorithmic settings for teen accounts and to adopt stronger age-verification systems. Courts will order concrete technical remedies rather than vague promises.
• The company will increase investment in age-assurance and opt-out defaults for safety features. Opponents will push for federal or state regulation if courts do not deliver broad remedies.

Bottom line

• The trial will determine whether design choices became legal liabilities. Mosseri’s admissions about low adoption and changes to research access have shifted the narrative from abstract debate to measurable company decisions that will shape any remedy.

How we got here

States filed the multidistrict lawsuit in 2023 accusing Meta of designing addictive features and collecting data on under-13s without consent. Four states—California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey—are leading the Oakland trial; 25 others will follow later. Meta denies wrongdoing and points to safety features and Teen Accounts launched in 2024.

Our analysis

Several outlets covered Mosseri’s testimony with overlapping but distinct emphases. AP News reported that Mosseri has defended Meta while states showed internal documents and quoted Virginia’s separate large settlement example; AP noted the $17bn settlement figure in broader state actions and emphasised the proposed safety controls such as hard caps on time and notification limits (AP News, 26 Aug). The Guardian highlighted Mosseri’s courtroom exchanges and his comment, "We don't publish every single stat," when questioned about not disclosing low opt-in numbers for Take a Break, and cited prosecutors' framing of Meta’s model as "hook, hold, harvest, hide" (The Guardian, 25–26 Aug). Business Insider and SBS focused closely on the adoption numbers: Business Insider noted Mosseri saying "Most people don't turn it on" and that the company later made Take a Break default within Teen Accounts; SBS recorded Mosseri admitting he had not disclosed the 1–2% early adoption rates and that internal documents recorded 1.8% for Take a Break and 8.7% for Quiet Mode (Business Insider UK, 26 Aug; SBS, 26 Aug). CNBC and the New York Times emphasised Mosseri’s denials that the company shrank youth-safety research teams after 2021 and quoted him saying he would be "taken aback" if lawyers had sought to mislead the public; both also placed the testimony in the context of the larger, bipartisan coalition of attorneys general and the potential financial stakes (CNBC, 25 Aug; New York Times Business, 25 Aug). The Independent and AP supplied corroborating courtroom detail about former employees' testimony that product trade-offs were driven by core metrics and that safety teams sometimes lacked authority to make opt-out defaults (Independent, 25–26 Aug; AP News, 25–26 Aug). Together, the coverage shows a consistent narrative: prosecutors are using internal metrics and ex-employees' testimony to argue the company prioritised engagement over safety; Meta is attributing changes to iteration and disputed the characterizatio

Go deeper

• What specific product changes would a court likely order if states win?
• How will default Teen Account settings change users' experience on Instagram?
• Could this trial set a national precedent for regulating social media design?

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