Whistleblower Arturo Béjar leads testimony in landmark trial against Meta

Key Points:

• Former Meta employee Arturo Béjar testified that the company culture, driven by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, prioritized user growth and profits over safety, making it nearly impossible to implement effective wellbeing features for teens.
• Béjar, a key witness in a multi-state lawsuit against Meta, accused Zuckerberg of lying when he denied that Meta put profits above safety, citing internal studies showing harm to teens on Facebook and Instagram.
• The lawsuit alleges Meta designed addictive features like infinite scrolling and "like" buttons to keep young users engaged longer for advertising revenue, contributing to youth mental health issues.
• Béjar criticized Meta's safety features, such as Instagram's optional "quiet mode," as ineffective because they require users to activate them rather than being default settings.
• The trial in federal court in California is a significant test of holding social media companies accountable for platform design choices that allegedly harm young users, with proceedings expected to last about six weeks.