{"id":85423,"date":"2026-02-20T14:49:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/mark-zuckerberg-to-testify-in-social-media-addiction-tria"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:26:07","slug":"mark-zuckerberg-to-testify-in-social-media-addiction-tria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/mark-zuckerberg-to-testify-in-social-media-addiction-tria","title":{"rendered":"Mark Zuckerberg to Testify in Social Media Addiction Tria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. <\/strong> <\/span><b>Mark Zuckerberg is set to take the stand Wednesday to testify for the first time before a jury about claims that his social media platforms harmed children and teens.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg\u2019s witness testimony in a landmark social media addiction trial will give the Meta chief executive a chance to defend the efforts the company says it has taken to protect young users.<\/p>\n<p>Parents who say their children were harmed or died as a result of social media are traveling from around the country to attend. They say the hearing marks a crucial moment of accountability for Meta following years of concerns about youth safety on its platforms Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n<p>Meta, as well as YouTube, are accused of intentionally designing addictive features that hooked a now-20-year-old woman as a child and harmed her mental health. The lawsuit brought by the young woman, identified by her lawyer as \u201cKaley,\u201d and her mother is the first of more than 1,500 similar lawsuits to go to trial.<\/p>\n<p>Kaley began using YouTube at the age of 6 and Instagram at 9, according to her lawyer, Mark Lanier. She sometimes used Instagram for \u201cseveral hours a day,\u201d he said, and was once on the platform for more than 16 hours in a single day, despite her mother\u2019s attempts to curb her use.<\/p>\n<p>Kaley claims the app\u2019s addictive features led her to develop anxiety, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts and that she experienced bullying and sextortion on Instagram.<\/p>\n<p>A Meta spokesperson has said \u201cwe strongly disagree\u201d with the allegations in Kaley\u2019s lawsuit and \u201care confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.\u201d The company\u2019s lawyer has argued that it was Kaley\u2019s difficult family life, rather than social media, that caused her mental health challenges. YouTube also denies the lawsuit\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe question for the jury in Los Angeles is whether Instagram was a substantial factor in the plaintiff\u2019s mental health struggles,\u201d a Meta spokesperson said in a statement ahead of Zuckerberg\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe evidence will show she faced many significant, difficult challenges well before she ever used social media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meta has pointed to safety features, such as parental oversight tools and \u201cteen accounts,\u201d which implement default privacy settings and content restrictions for users under the age of 18.<\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg is expected to face questions about what Meta has known about the risks of its platforms for young users, and whether those safety features were sufficient to mitigate them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure he\u2019s going to talk about the fact that he has children and this is really important to him&#8230; I think he\u2019s going to just talk about everything that they\u2019re doing to make it seem like \u2018we\u2019re doing the best we can,\u2019\u201d Kimberly Pallen, a partner at the law firm Withers who specializes in complex civil litigation, told CNN.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s probably what it\u2019s going to come down to: From the jury\u2019s perspective, are they doing enough? And do they care?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg\u2019s performance on the stand could also play a significant role in how the jury views the case, Pallen said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to turn on how these people testify in front of the jury, if the jury likes them, and what the documents show,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg is also likely to be asked \u2014 as Instagram chief Adam Mosseri was during his own testimony last week \u2014 whether he prioritized earning profits over youth safety with his product decisions, as Kaley alleges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInternal documents show that Meta understood the dangers its platforms posed to young people,\u201d Kaley\u2019s lawyer, Matthew Bergman, said in a statement Tuesday. \u201cYet Zuckerberg and Meta pushed forward, choosing features designed to keep kids online longer, even when those choices put children directly in harm\u2019s way. For parents who have spent years fighting to be heard, this moment carries profound weight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>Source: Nilepost News<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Eswatini<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. Mark Zuckerberg is set to take the stand Wednesday to testify for the first time before a jury about claims that his social media platforms harmed children and teens. Zuckerberg\u2019s witness testimony in a landmark social media addiction trial will give the Meta chief executive a chance to defend the efforts the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":85422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-85423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-eswatini"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mark Zuckerberg to Testify in Social Media Addiction Tria - Eswatini<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Eswatini. 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