The head of Instagram has told a court he does not believe people can get clinically addicted to social media.
Adam Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018, was testifying during a landmark trial in LA where social media giants are being accused of creating harmful and addictive products.
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He said it was important to differentiate between clinical addiction and what he, and others at Instagram, describe as “problematic use”.
He said he and his colleagues use the term “problematic use” to refer to “someone spending more time on Instagram than they feel good about, and that definitely happens”.
When asked about the plaintiff, a young person known as KGM, spending 16 hours in one day on Instagram, he told the court: “That sounds like problematic use.”
He noted several times that he is not a medical professional.
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Mr Mosseri was also quizzed on body image filters that give users the appearance of having plastic surgery.
Meta – the parent company of Instagram and Facebook – banned those filters in 2019, but emails shown in court suggest Mr Mosseri and others at Instagram discussed whether to lift the ban.
Instagram employees working on policy, communictions and well-being, including the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, pushed to keep the ban.
“We would – rightly – be accused of putting growth over responsibility,” said Mr Clegg, who was then Meta’s vice president of global affairs, according to the emails.
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Mr Mosseri and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg wanted to reverse the ban but remove the filters from the app’s recommendation section. This was noted in the emails as presenting a “notable wellbeing risk” but having less of an impact on user growth than the all-out ban.
“I was trying to balance all the different considerations,” said Mr Mosseri in court, adding that he agreed with the ultimate decision to prohibit filters that promote plastic surgery.
He also said: “Often people try to frame things as you either prioritise safety or you prioritise revenue. It’s really hard to imagine any instance where prioritising safety isn’t good for revenue.”
However, his testimony has been criticised by those working with bereaved families.
“Adam Mosseri’s testimony under oath today revealed what families have long suspected: Instagram’s executives made a conscious decision to put growth over the safety of minors,” said Matthew P Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center.
“His admission goes to the heart of this trial – these harms were not accidental, but the result of deliberate design choices that prioritised engagement over children’s wellbeing.
“The evidence shows that Instagram knew the risks its product posed to young users, yet continued to deploy features engineered to keep kids online longer, even when those features exposed them to significant danger.”
