Instagram chief testifies at Meta trial, says few teens used safety feature

By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and Reuters. Published On 26 Aug 202626 Aug 2026.

Key points

• US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will decide whether Meta is liable and, if so, determine any civil penalties and changes to Facebook and Instagram.
• All 29 states say Meta violated US federal law by improperly collecting and employing the personal data of children under 13 while they applied its platforms.
• "In my experience, Take a Break is a feature that's designed to fail, " Arturo Bejar, a former Meta engineering director, testified last week.
• Take a Break encourages teenage users to close the app after a certain amount of time.
• Meta has rejected accusations that it sought to addict children, saying its research indicated no clear link between adolescents' social media apply and a lack of wellbeing.

As hearings in a landmark trial against its parent business, Meta, continue in the United States, the top executive at Instagram has admitted that few teenagers have applied a feature meant to counter addiction before it was turned on by default.

Adam Mosseri testified on Tuesday as Meta's trial – over accusations that it designed its platforms, including Facebook, to be addictive to young individuals – entered its second week.

Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018, denied any suggestion by US states suing Meta that Instagram had stalled by not making the "Take a Break" feature the default setting for teenagers until September 2024, almost three years after its launch.

"Most teens didn't want it, " Mosseri remarked. "We decided to push forward with it anyway."

Mosseri is a central witness in the lawsuit brought by 29 US states, in what experts call the biggest legal test yet of social media's effects on young users.

While misleading consumers regarding the platforms' safety, four of the states – California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey – have accused Meta of designing the platforms to hook young users, driving anxiety, depression and even suicide.

All 29 states say Meta violated US federal law by improperly collecting and employing the personal data of children under 13 while they applied its platforms. The states are seeking approximately $200bn in damages from Meta.

Under questioning from Jason Slothouber, a lawyer for Colorado, Mosseri acknowledged that the percentage of teenagers using Take a Break was in the low single digits before Instagram created it ⁠the default.

Take a Break encourages teenage users to close the app after a certain amount of time. Mosseri had estimated in a December 2021 blog post that more than 90 percent of teenagers who turned the feature on kept it on.

That number, nevertheless, referred to the number of those who had turned on the feature.

When asked whether Meta had disclosed its low adoption. It had reached only 1 or 2 percent of accounts, Mosseri admitted the firm had not, but stated the safety features were afterwards turned on by default in Teen Accounts, which rolled out in 2024 and have parental controls.

According to Former Meta employees have, features such as Take a Break and Quiet Mode were challenging to find and not widely applied, casting doubt on whether they represented a serious effort by the business to limit screen time for young users.

George Volichenko, a data scientist who worked on safety features at Instagram in 2022 and 2023, likewise stated on Monday that adoption rates of such features were "very low" and that firm leadership had declined to approve turning on Quiet Mode by default for young teenagers.

He continued that turning on such features automatically would have had a "notable negative impact" on user engagement. The trial could last six weeks.

Jurors are projected to problem an advisory verdict. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will decide whether Meta is liable and, if so, determine any civil penalties and changes to Facebook and Instagram.

For now, instagram chief testifies at Meta trial, says few teens used safety feature remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.