Whistleblower claimed that teenagers encountered harmful content hundreds of times more often than Meta reported
Kyiv • UNN
Former Meta engineer Arturo Béjar testified in court that internal surveys showed a significantly higher prevalence of harmful content for teenagers than official reports indicated. The lawsuit brought by 29 states against the company is ongoing, and Meta denies the allegations.
Former Meta employee Arturo Behar testified in court that teenagers on the company's platforms could encounter graphic and violent content 100–400 times more often than indicated by Meta's official data. Behar made the statement during a trial in a lawsuit brought by U.S. states against the company, BBC reports, as reported by UNN.
Details
Behar, who previously worked as a senior engineer and product manager at Facebook, is the prosecution's first witness. He said Meta had the results of internal user surveys showing a significantly higher prevalence of harmful content, but did not publish the data.
According to him, Meta reports stated that the risk of teenagers encountering graphic or violent content was 0.01–0.02%. At the same time, internal survey results showed a figure that was 100–400 times higher.
Harm is what people perceive as harm. Prevalence is a very narrow measure of a very specific thing
He also told the court that he had repeatedly raised concerns with Meta's management about the safety of young users. According to Behar, the company identified a significant number of cases of harm but did not always use the results of its own research to change its products.
The allegations against Meta
State attorneys general accuse Meta of knowing about the risks to minors but putting commercial interests ahead of user safety.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Meta knew about cases of self-harm and eating disorders associated with the use of Instagram.
This mental health crisis among young people, caused by social media, requires action
At the same time, Meta denies the allegations. A company representative told the court that the platform had taken steps to remove accounts belonging to children under 13. According to him, in the past three months alone, the company deleted about 600,000 such accounts.
The trial, in which 29 U.S. states are participating, may last from five to seven weeks. If Meta loses, the company could face multibillion-dollar damages and significant changes to the operation of its platforms.
Google and Meta lose bid to dismiss youth social media addiction lawsuit11.06.26, 05:17 • 4380 views