A former Meta safety researcher delivered damaging testimony Wednesday in a landmark federal trial, accusing Mark Zuckerberg and his company of deliberately avoiding child-safety problems on Facebook and Instagram when addressing them could threaten profits.
Arturo Béjar, who worked on safety issues at Meta for years and later emerged as a prominent critic of the company, told jurors in California federal court that Zuckerberg wielded enormous authority as CEO but failed to adequately confront the dangers the platforms posed to young users.
“You just cannot trust Mark Zuckerberg with kids,” Béjar said on the witness stand.
Béjar became the first witness presented by a coalition of 29 state attorneys general suing Meta. The states allege that the company intentionally designed addictive features that contributed to anxiety, depression and even suicide among teenagers, while also improperly collecting children’s personal information without parental permission.
The attorneys general are asking the court to order significant changes to Meta’s platforms and impose substantial financial penalties for the alleged violations. Attorneys representing the states have suggested damages could approach $200 billion, while Meta has argued that the potential figure under the plaintiffs’ calculations could climb as high as $1.4 trillion.
Béjar headed a safety-oriented team at Meta between 2009 and 2015 before returning as a consultant from 2019 through 2021. During his testimony, he accused Zuckerberg of creating a misleading public picture of how seriously the company treated the welfare of young users.
“I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook’s commitment to young people,” said Béjar, who estimated that he spoke to Zuckerberg about safety issues at least 100 times during his tenure.
According to Béjar, Meta possessed technology capable of identifying underage users who circumvented the company’s safeguards, but effectively adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach because younger users represented valuable future customers.
“Where the youngest kids are is where the users are going to be in the future,” Béjar said.
Béjar previously played a major role as a witness in separate litigation brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez. In that case, he described the disturbing experiences of his daughter after she joined Instagram at age 16, including receiving sexually explicit messages and “unsolicited penis pictures.”
During cross-examination Wednesday, a Meta attorney questioned Béjar about his decision to permit his daughter to use Instagram. Béjar acknowledged that he had not anticipated the extent of the dangers she would encounter on the platform.
“I kept an eye on how distressing it was for her,” Béjar said. “She got a good following, at the price of harm.”
The multistate trial is expected to continue for approximately six weeks and is set to feature testimony from some of Meta’s most prominent executives. Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri are both expected to take the witness stand.
Meta has denied the allegations against it and maintains that the attorneys general are pursuing financial penalties far beyond what the case could legitimately justify.
During opening arguments Tuesday, Meta attorney Paul Schmidt defended the company’s record, arguing that Zuckerberg and other executives have repeatedly worked to make Facebook and Instagram safer for children. He pointed to measures including parental supervision features and tools allowing limits to be placed on the amount of time young people spend on social media.
