Meta chief executive officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg took the witness stand in a social media addiction trial in Los Angeles this month, where he was questioned on whether Instagram’s design contributed to addictive behaviour among young users and harmed their mental health.
In court, Zuckerberg faced questioning from Mark Lanier, the lawyer representing a woman identified as KGM, who began using Instagram and YouTube in childhood and alleges that the platforms intensified her depression and suicidal thoughts. Her team challenged Zuckerberg’s testimony by citing internal communications and alleged that he misled Congress in 2024, when he said the company did not set goals of maximising time spent on their platforms.
“We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people”, a Meta spokesperson told Al Jazeera.
Before proceedings began, TikTok and Snap Inc. reached settlements with the plaintiff ahead of trial, leaving Meta and Google’s YouTube to contest the claims before a jury. That narrowed focus has consequently sharpened scrutiny on Meta’s internal deliberations, particularly around how it assessed risks to teenagers and enforced its own age rules.
Notably, as testimony has unfolded, the court has partially released several Meta internal documents into evidence. This material, spanning from 2016 to 2023, offers a detailed look at how Meta targeted teen engagement and marketed to children.
What do internal documents reveal?
Teen Engagement As “Top Priority”
Planning documents from 2016 show that a focus on increasing teenage users was already embedded at the company level. In a 2016 internal email, executives described the “overall company goal” to be “total teen time spent”. Another email reads, “Mark has decided that the top priority for the company in H1 2017 is teens”.
By 2018, internal reviews acknowledged stagnation and decline. A Youth Team Review noted that “Teen MAP in the US and western countries continues to decline”. At the same time, it identified strategic pillars — Kids, Tweens, and Teens — and highlighted product efforts such as launching Messenger Kids, Meta’s first in the “under 13 category”.
Furthermore, Meta’s internal documents frame declining teen engagement not as incidental, but as a core strategic problem. A 2018 review states plainly: “The teen population on Facebook is decreasing and so one of the key goals of the Youth Growth team is to get teens onto Facebook and to stay there.” Furthermore, the same document outlines the underlying assumption that “teens’ lives and social network revolve around their school”, and argues that improving the “high school experience for them on Facebook will increase their engagement”.
Crucially, internal analysis connected engagement to school-based networks. A chart in the review concluded: “The more…
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