OAKLAND, Calif. — Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified Tuesday as Meta defends itself against state lawsuits accusing the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to addict children and concealing harms to young users.
Mosseri told the court that a 2021 feature called Take a Break — which prompts teens to pause after a set time on the app — produced far lower usage than expected. An internal document entered into evidence showed only about 1.8% of teens used the feature at one point. Mosseri acknowledged the pop-up “helped, but not nearly as much as we hoped,” and said he wished the feature had been fixed sooner.
Meta made Take a Break the default on teen accounts in late 2024, and Mosseri said that change rendered earlier uptake figures “entirely moot.” Colorado deputy attorney general Jason Slothouber countered that the change came after the states sued Meta in 2023, and pressed Mosseri on a blog post he wrote around the feature’s launch claiming “more than 90%” of users kept it on — a statement Slothouber said omitted how few people actually enabled it.
When asked whether parents or users could have known that only 1–2% of teens were using the tool, Mosseri replied “Correct,” and confirmed Meta has never disclosed that low figure.
Mosseri emphasized Take a Break and Quiet Mode — which silences Instagram notifications — were only two among many measures Meta has rolled out to address problematic teen use. “In general, there are no silver bullets to problems like this. We have to do many things that add up,” he said, reflecting Meta’s broader defense that the company was aware of risks and took steps to mitigate them.
The multi-state lawsuit, brought by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, accuses Meta of intentionally designing its platforms to hook children, harvesting data and hiding evidence about harms. Meta’s lawyers deny those allegations and are aiming to show the company took actions to reduce risks.
Mosseri also faced questions about internal communications related to a presentation prepared for him about types of problematic content shown to teens. Prosecutors pointed to messages saying Meta lawyers had advised product teams to limit what data Mosseri would see to reduce his “litigation exposure.” Mosseri said he was not aware of that exchange but said it “makes sense” for document creators to want accurate information. He agreed a product designer would be better qualified than a lawyer to decide which product data to present to him.
On the stand, Mosseri defended Meta’s transparency and objected to taking snippets of internal documents out of context. “I think parents want to have good information about services, risks, etc. That’s different than reporters or lawyers taking small bits from much larger documents and focusing on them,” he said.
The stakes in the trial are substantial. Meta reported in July that Instagram has about 2 billion daily active users worldwide, and surveys show the app is especially popular with U.S. teens — roughly six in 10 say they use Instagram, and about half use it daily. Initial damage estimates cited by observers have been reported as high as $1.4 trillion, a figure that would equal roughly the company’s full market value and has led some legal experts to compare the case to 1990s litigation against tobacco companies.
Mosseri, a longtime Meta employee who joined when the company was still Facebook in 2008 and became Instagram’s leader in 2018, is expected to continue testifying Wednesday. The trial in Oakland is expected to run several more weeks.