Internal Documents Reveal Concerns

State lawyers in the trial relied heavily on information found in millions of internal Meta documents provided in the case; these included internal research, employee emails, and chat logs that reached up to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. One piece of internal research on Instagram stated: “Teens have an addict’s narrative about use.”

Meta maintained throughout the brief trial that it had worked extensively over the years to make its platforms safer for its youngest users, pouring resources into testing and research, and building new features. “We’re always working on teen safety,” head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said during an hour of court testimony on Tuesday.

Challenges in Implementing Safety Features

A former Meta researcher, George Volichenko, appeared in court and discussed internal communications regarding the company’s work on safety; Volichenko said he struggled to understand in 2022 why his team wasn’t given more freedom to better test and implement new safety features. One of those was “quiet mode,” which muted notifications for teen users during the night.

His team knew such a feature would be much more widely adopted if Meta turned it on by default. He recalled his manager telling him he “shouldn’t worry too much about the adoption figures being low, because the team exists partially to protect the company against the upcoming lawsuits.”

Global Implications and Industry Reckoning

The trial technically focused on children’s online privacy, based on a US law called the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which predates today’s biggest social platforms. It centered around Meta’s historic gathering and use of data belonging to children under the age of 13 over several years; In reality, it was a coordinated attack on the firm’s online safety credentials.

Meta, alongside other social media apps, is under fire around the world as 2026 is shaping up to be a year of reckoning for the entire industry. The trial was rough for Meta, and whistleblower Arturo Bejar, who once worked at Instagram, claimed that in the past he had told bosses that harmful stuff was happening to children on the platform, and no action was taken.

Meta has fought hard, over multiple lawsuits spanning many months and at great expense, to defend its commitment to protecting children on its platforms, and the company has launched over 60 safety tools on Instagram alone, many of which are now switched on by default.