By Madlin Mekelburg
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri came under fire at a landmark trial over social media addiction for maintaining features on the photo-sharing app that researchers had flagged as harmful to teens.
Mosseri is the first company executive to testify during the Los Angeles trial, in which a 20-year-old woman blames Meta Platforms Inc.’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube for her years of mental health struggles — claims the companies deny.
The trial is a critical test for thousands of similar cases with billions of dollars at stake, as well as the prospect that social media companies could be forced to change how they interact with youths, one of their key audiences.
Mosseri was pressed Wednesday by a lawyer representing the woman over how he handled controversy tied to image filters on the platform that allow users to virtually alter their appearance, sometimes resembling plastic surgery.
An email thread from 2019 shows that while Mosseri and other Instagram executives debated the impact of these third-party filters on “more vulnerable users (youth and women),” a concern arose that banning the filters would drive users to other platforms.
Nick Clegg, a former executive at Meta, said if the company opted not to limit the filters, “we would rightly be accused of putting growth over responsibility.”
In his testimony, Mosseri described trying to strike a balance which would preserve filters that create effects resembling makeup, but he said “we had trouble defining that line.”
Mark Lanier, the plaintiff’s lawyer, pushed Mosseri to admit that he prioritised commercial considerations over user safety. Lanier asked whether a “reasonable company” would put out a product before testing if it was harmful to young users.
“We chose to focus the ban on effects that promoted surgery, which is what we thought was the most risky area,” Mosseri said.
Phyllis Jones, an attorney for Meta, asked Mosseri to respond directly to claims raised in the case that Instagram put profit over the safety of young users.
“Often people try to frame things as: it is either you prioritise safety or you prioritise revenue,” Mosseri said. “If you’re thinking long-term, not just this week, it’s really hard to imagine any instances where prioritising safety isn’t good for revenue.”
He also stressed that the company does not make money directly from photo filters, because Instagram’s revenue is based on how many ads people see on the platform.
The state court trial before a jury of six women and six men is expected to run through late March.
Meta and Google argue that their products are not to blame for the woman’s psychological distress and that the platforms are equipped with robust safety guardrails to protect young people from harm.
TikTok Inc. and Snap Inc. are defendants in the broader group of addiction lawsuits, but aren’t participating in the current case because they reached confidential settlements with the woman’s lawyers at the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center shortly before trial.
Under questioning from Lanier, Mosseri acknowledged that “problematic use” of Instagram and other online platforms is real, but asserted that social media was not “clinically addictive.”
“I think it is important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” Mosseri said. “Sometimes we use the word addiction to refer to things more casually. I’m sure I’ve said I’m addicted to a Netflix show when I binged it really late one night.”
In his opening statement, Lanier told jurors that his client — who has been identified as Kaley and K.G.M. because she was a minor when she first sued — would spend hours scrolling on Instagram every day. Her highest usage recorded was 16.2 hours on a single day in March 2022. Lanier said she felt “trapped” on the platform.
Mosseri agreed with Lanier that 16 hours “sounds like problematic use.”
Mosseri has been leading Instagram since the app’s founders left in 2018 — and has been a top product lieutenant at the company for well over a decade.
Previously, he spent a decade at Meta in various product roles, most notably as the head of Facebook News Feed, which was at the time the company’s most iconic product surface and largest revenue driver.
News Feed is also considered the first product to popularise the “infinite scroll” feature, in which the platform surfaces an unlimited supply of posts for people to scroll through. Under Mosseri, Instagram also announced plans in 2021 for a kids-version of the app called Instagram Youth, which was ultimately scrapped after strong backlash from politicians and parenting groups.
Mosseri testified about teen safety on Instagram before the Senate Commerce Committee in 2021 after it was reported that the company’s own research showed that Instagram had negative effects on some of its teen users, especially girls.
Mosseri has long argued that social media, particularly Instagram, can be a positive for teens who seek friends and community online, even if they are dealing with challenges offline.
Instagram rolled out so-called teen accounts in late 2024 that limit who users can interact with and what content they see. Mosseri said these changes were not intended to appease lawmakers.
“Honestly, it’s not designed for any of them,” he said at the time. “My hope is that it’s received well by parents and by teens because that’s exactly who it’s designed for.”
Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube’s Neal Mohan are expected to testify later in the trial.
 "Instagram chief grilled in court over profit versus mental health concerns")
