Former Meta engineer says Instagram took a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach on kids under 13
A former Meta engineering director who has testified before Congress about child safety on Instagram told jurors Wednesday that the company took a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to children under 13 on its platforms.
On his second day of testimony, Arturo Béjar said Meta consistently prioritized profits over safety, focusing on how often and how long people used its products, even when that harmed their mental well-being. “If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he said.
The trial, which began Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, pits Meta against California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey and is expected to last about six weeks. The states were among 29 that sued Meta in 2023 over child safety and privacy. The other 25 will go to trial later. Meta also faces state lawsuits, including one in Tennessee.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of knowingly designing addictive features that contribute to the youth mental health crisis while hiding the harms, and of routinely collecting data from children under 13 without parental consent in violation of federal law.
Meta has rejected the claims, saying evidence will show its commitment to safety and responsibility toward teens and parents.
Béjar worked at Facebook from 2009 to 2015 and returned as a contractor from 2019 to 2021. He testified before Congress in 2023 that Meta executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, knew about Instagram’s harms but failed to make meaningful changes.
He said employee reviews and compensation for user-facing products focused mostly on user numbers and time spent on them. “In that context, safety was an afterthought,” he said.
Béjar said he found “tens of thousands” of children under 13 on Instagram and that their presence was “common knowledge” at Meta. Despite its sophisticated fake-account detection, he said there were “no goals, no metrics” for identifying suspected underage users.
The states seek changes to Facebook and Instagram and financial damages that could reach billions of dollars. California officials said the primary remedy would be an injunction preventing Meta from offering dangerous products to teens and misleading teens, families and the public about those dangers.
Béjar also criticized features he said were designed for adults but are “inherently unsafe for teenagers,” including video autoplay and counters showing likes, views, comments and followers. Child development experts say teens are more vulnerable than adults to social comparison, making popularity-based features potentially more harmful to their mental health.
Meta requires users to be at least 13, consistent with federal child privacy laws.
Béjar said Meta’s safety features also failed. He called its 2021 “Take a Break” tool “designed to fail” because users must activate it themselves and can dismiss it with a tap. He said safety tools should be enabled by default, comparing the feature to an airbag drivers must activate each time they enter a car.
