The Lower Eastern Times Opening The Third Eye
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By: BBC
The CEO of the parent company Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, Mark Zuckerberg, has given evidence in a landmark case on whether social media is causing internet addiction among young people.
The billionaire, who refrained from using the word addiction and faced harsh criticism, said he regrets the Meta network’s gradual move to identify underage users.
The case was filed by a 20-year-old girl who claimed to have been using the internet since she was 10 years old, which caused her mental health problems.
Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta, the company that owns Instagram, has struggled in court to defend his company over allegations that it targets underage users, while facing numerous lawsuits in this regard.
He insisted that the lawyers were providing misleading communications, which were presented as part of a landmark case in Los Angeles about whether social media is drugging children.
It was Zuckerberg’s first appearance in court, after years of fierce opposition to Meta, which also owns WhatsApp and Facebook.
The case, in which Google’s YouTube is also listed as a defendant, is being closely watched for its impact on thousands of similar cases.
TikTok and Snapchat, which were also named in the lawsuit, were able to reach an agreement and resolve the charges they faced shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin.
The terms of the agreement were not made clear.
Meta has repeatedly emphasized that the company has taken steps to protect young users and people under the age of 13.
But in court, Mark Lanier, the attorney for the lead plaintiff in the case known as KGM, presented an internal email that raised concerns that this had not been implemented.
Another 2018 presentation showed the company discussing the online presence of young children despite the company theoretically blocking users under the age of 13.
