Former Meta Engineer Says Instagram Put Engagement Ahead of Under-13 User Safety
New Delhi — A former Meta engineering director has testified in U.S. federal court that Instagram took a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to children under 13, alleging that the company prioritized engagement and growth over user safety.
Arturo Bejar, who has previously testified before Congress about child safety, said during his second day on the witness stand that Meta measured employee performance and compensation largely through engagement metrics, including user growth and time spent on its platforms.
“In that context, safety was an afterthought,” Bejar said, according to media reports.
Bejar testified that his research found “tens of thousands” of children under 13 using Instagram and said it was “common knowledge” within the company that such young users were on the platform.
His testimony came in a federal trial involving Meta and the states of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. The states are among 29 that sued the technology company in 2023, alleging that it knowingly designed features that encouraged young users to become addicted to its platforms and contributed to a youth mental health crisis.
Bejar said Meta had sophisticated systems for detecting fake accounts but lacked comparable “goals or metrics” for employees to identify and verify the ages of users suspected of being under 13.
The lawsuit also alleges that Meta routinely collected data from children under 13 without parental consent, in violation of federal law.
Meta has denied the allegations and said evidence presented at trial will demonstrate its commitment to user safety.
Meta attorney Paul Schmidt said the case would address issues including teen mental health, social media and how young people use online platforms.
“Those are important issues, and they’re issues where Meta believes that it has a responsibility,” Schmidt said. “It has a responsibility to act on its own. It has a responsibility to try to work with teens and parents in partnership to try to address those questions.”
Bejar also criticized some Instagram features introduced to improve safety for younger users, arguing that they were ineffective.
He cited Instagram’s Take a Break feature, introduced in 2021, saying it was designed in a way that limited its effectiveness because users had to enable it themselves and could easily dismiss reminders.
“A safety tool has to be on by default,” Bejar said, adding that a feature intended to encourage users to step away from the platform should not be so easy to dismiss. (Source” IANS)
