A landmark trial in Oakland, California, has entered its third day with explosive testimony from a former Meta engineer who claims the company knew about the dangers its platforms posed to young people but failed to act. The case, brought by four US states—Colorado, California, New Jersey, and Kentucky—could reshape how social media giants like Facebook and Instagram are designed, with potential ripple effects across the Atlantic.
Arturo Béjar, who served as Meta's engineering director, told the jury that the company's public Community Standards Enforcement Reports—which track how often users encounter policy-violating content—may understate the real risk by as much as 100 times. His testimony draws on internal user surveys that asked people directly about their negative experiences, a method he argued was far more accurate than Meta's preferred metric of content prevalence.
“Harm is what people experience as harm,” Béjar said, citing the example of a 13-year-old sharing distress and seeking help online. “Prevalence is a very narrow measure of a very specific thing.” His critique strikes at the heart of Meta's defense, which has long relied on these reports to demonstrate its commitment to safety.
‘Hook, harvest, hide’
California's deputy attorney general, Megan O'Neill, opened the trial by summarizing Meta's alleged business model in four words: “Hook the users. Hold them for as long as they can. Harvest their data. Hide the truth from the public.” She accused the company of deliberately designing its platforms to addict younger users and of interfering with its own mental health research to obscure the risks.
Meta's lawyer, Paul Schmidt, countered that the company has a history of sharing information about social media harms and that enforcing content and age-limit policies is complex. He noted that verifying a user's age through government ID or credit cards is not feasible for everyone, and urged the jury to keep an open mind. Schmidt also pointed to ongoing efforts by Meta employees to improve user wellbeing.
Béjar's testimony went further, alleging that Meta was aware of tens of thousands of children under 13 on Instagram, despite the platform's minimum age rule. He said the company's own technology could flag millions more, but instead of removing them, Meta adopted a “don't ask, don't tell” stance. He also described how safety was an afterthought during the rollout of features like Reels, where “safety was not a consideration in how it was initially deployed.”
In a particularly poignant moment, Béjar recounted emailing Chris Cox, Meta's chief product officer, to highlight the gap between user-reported harm and company priorities. He said Cox was the first executive who could answer off the top of his head what percentage of users experienced such harm—a revelation Béjar called “heartbreaking,” because it meant leadership already knew and chose not to act.
The trial, which Kentucky's attorney general Russell Coleman has called the largest consumer protection lawsuit in American history, could have implications far beyond the United States. European regulators and policymakers have been closely watching similar cases, and the outcome may influence how the EU's Digital Services Act is enforced. For European readers, the case underscores the ongoing debate about teen addiction to social media and the responsibility of tech companies to protect young users.
Béjar also noted a fundamental shift in Instagram's design: from a platform where users chose to follow accounts to one that increasingly serves content from strangers. This change, he argued, introduced substantial new risks, as users are exposed to unvetted material that can amplify harm.
If the states prevail, the ruling could set a precedent that platform design choices—not just individual content—can create legal liability. That would likely reverberate across the industry, affecting rivals like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, and prompting a reassessment of how platforms are built and monitored. For now, the trial continues, with the jury set to weigh whether Meta's actions crossed the line from negligence to deliberate harm.
