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By Goli Innocent
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a California court that his company was slow to curb underage users on Instagram, as he faced intense questioning in a landmark US social media trial.
Testifying before a Los Angeles jury, Zuckerberg said he regretted that Meta had not moved faster to improve age verification systems, preventing children under 13 from accessing Instagram.
“I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner,” he said, while insisting that improvements have since been made.
The case, unfolding in California, is the first in a wave of lawsuits brought by American families who allege that platforms owned by Meta and Google were deliberately designed to encourage compulsive use among young people, worsening depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions.
Lawyers for the plaintiff pressed Zuckerberg with internal emails suggesting that age verification tools were inadequate and that increasing user engagement, including time spent on Instagram, had long been a key company target.
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Zuckerberg acknowledged that Meta “used to have goals around time” but argued the broader objective was to build useful services that connect people.
The lawsuit centres on a 20-year-old California resident who began using YouTube at six and Instagram at nine, despite rules barring under-13s from the platform.
Plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier challenged Zuckerberg over how easily children could bypass age restrictions.
Zuckerberg also argued that age verification should be handled at the smartphone operating system level by companies like Apple and Google, rather than by individual apps.
He maintained that Meta is now “in the right place” on enforcement.
The trial, expected to run until late March, could set a legal precedent for thousands of similar cases across the United States, potentially reshaping how major technology firms protect young users online.
