Former Meta executive says Zuckerberg left child safety on the back burner

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey accuse Meta of developing Facebook and Instagram in a way that encourages excessive use by young people, contributing to problems such as anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts. The states also claim that the company misled consumers about the security of the platforms. These states, along with 25 others, also accuse Meta of violating federal law by improperly collecting and using children's personal data on its platforms. Meta denied the accusations and argued that Bejar's opinions go beyond the scope of his duties at the company. Bejar began testifying on Tuesday, the first day of the trial, in federal court in Oakland, California. The trial is expected to last around six weeks, and Zuckerberg is also expected to testify. Safety was a secondary concern Bejar helped conduct research into teens' experience on Instagram as part of a team analyzing the platform's impact on users' well-being between 2019 and 2021. Since then, he has become a leading critic of Meta's safety policies for children. In 2023, when testifying before a United States Senate committee, he stated that the company was aware of cases of harassment and other problems faced by teenagers on its platforms, but did not take sufficient measures to resolve them. In Wednesday's statement, Bejar stated that the company used indicators such as engagement level and number of daily active users to evaluate and reward employees. According to him, this meant that growth and profitability received more attention than user safety. He also stated that a tool created to encourage pauses in the use of applications, frequently cited by Meta in its defense, would have been "designed to fail". According to Bejar, the feature is not activated by default and the reminders are easy to ignore. “It all depends on how product development time is distributed,” he said. "In this context, security has always taken a backseat." Bejar also claimed that Meta had technology to identify users suspected of being under the age of 13 and require additional age verifications. According to him, the company chose not to act broadly on the problem, adopting a stance that it classified as "don't ask, don't tell", as it considered this strategy to be financially advantageous in the long term. "Where today's children are are tomorrow's users," he said. Experts say this trial represents the biggest judicial test ever carried out on the effects of social media on young people. Meta faces thousands of similar lawsuits related to alleged harm to children. Bejar has served as a witness in three of the cases that have come to trial so far. One of them, filed by the state of New Mexico, ended with the imposition of US$942 million in compensation and fines, in addition to a court order determining changes to the company's platforms in the state.