LOS ANGELES: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri on Wednesday (Feb 11) rejected the notion that users could be clinically addicted to social media, as he testified in a landmark California trial over whether his company knowingly hooked children on its platform for profit.
Meta – the parent company of Instagram and Facebook – and Google-owned YouTube are defendants in the blockbuster trial, which could set a legal precedent regarding whether social media giants deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive to children.
“I think it’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” Mosseri said as he was grilled by plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier.
“I’m sure I said that I’ve been addicted to a Netflix show when I binged it really late one night, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as clinical addiction,” he added.
Lanier immediately challenged this point, emphasising that the witness did not have a degree in medicine or psychology.
“I’ve never claimed being able to diagnose addiction clinically,” Mosseri responded during the exchange.
“I’m sure I was using the word too casually.”
Facing him, mothers of teenagers who had taken their own lives held back their anger in the public gallery.
These representatives of families who have filed complaints against major platforms in the United States had camped out in the rain outside the courthouse to secure seats.
DOPAMINE DISPENSERS?
Addiction is at the heart of the civil trial, which centres on allegations that a 20-year-old woman, identified as Kaley GM, suffered severe mental harm after becoming addicted to social media as a young child.
She started using YouTube at six and joined Instagram at 11, before moving on to Snapchat and TikTok two or three years later.
“The Instagram that Kaley signed up for was very different and presented a much smaller set of risks back then,” Mosseri said, noting that the service was “a much smaller, more focused app” before it had to adapt to the changing world.
Mosseri described safety features added to Instagram since it was bought by Facebook in 2012, some of which had “negative effects” on engagement and revenue.