Mark Zuckerberg downplays Meta’s own research in New Mexico child safety trial

Jurors in a New Mexico child safety trial heard testimony from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg today. During pre-recorded testimony, Zuckerberg was repeatedly asked about the company’s understanding of social media addiction and other issues that had been studied by its researchers.

During the deposition, which was recorded last March, Zuckerberg was asked about numerous findings from researchers at Meta who studied how the company’s apps affect users and teens. The CEO downplayed the significance of many of these documents.

Early in the testimony, which was viewed by Engadget on Courtroom View Network, Zuckerberg was questioned about a document on the effect of feedback on Facebook users. The document stated that “contributors on Facebook are likely to learn to associate the act of posting with feedback” which will “lead contributors to seek rewards by visiting the site more often.” Zuckerberg said he wasn’t “sure if that’s actually how it works in practice, but I agree that you’re summarizing what they appear to be saying.”

Later, the CEO was questioned about a document that graphed the proportion of 11 and 12-year-olds who were monthly active users on Instagram. The chart indicated that at the time, around 20 percent of 11-year-olds were monthly users of the service. “I agree that the graph says that, I am not familiar with what methodology we were using to estimate this,” Zuckerberg said. “I assume that if we had direct knowledge that any given person was under the age of 13, that we would have them removed from our services.”

New Mexico’s attorney general sued the company in 2023 for alleged lapses in child safety, including facilitating predators’ access to minors and building features it knew were addictive. In court, Meta’s lawyers and executives have disputed the idea that social media should be considered an “addiction.” In public statements, the company has said that lawsuits have relied on “cherry-picked quotes and snippets of conversations taken out of context” and that it “has consistently put teen safety ahead of growth for over a decade.”

As with his recent testimony in a separate trial over social media addiction in Los Angeles, Zuckerberg repeatedly rejected the “characterization” of questions that were posed to him. And he said that Meta’s goal was to make its apps “useful” rather than to increase the amount of time people spend with them.

Zuckerberg was also questioned about a document written by a company researcher that stated “there is increasing scientific evidence, particularly in the US, … that the average net effect of Facebook on people’s well being is slightly negative.” The CEO said that “my understanding is that the general consensus view is not that.”

It’s not the first time a Meta executive has tried to downplay the significance of internal research. The company used a similar strategy in 2021 after former employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen disclosed documents showing that Facebook’s researchers had found that Instagram made some teen girls feel worse about themselves.

Zuckerberg’s testimony was played one day after jurors heard recorded testimony from Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. The exec was also asked about Haugen’s disclosures and Meta’s response to them. Some of those disclosures were based on “problematic research,” he said. “Most research is surveys. We run hundreds of surveys every month.”