00:00Mark Zuckerberg testified yesterday in a landmark court case that could determine whether or not
00:04social media companies can be held viable for alleged harm done to children who use their
00:10platforms. Yesterday, Zuckerberg faced KGM, a 20-year-old Californian woman known by her
00:15initials only, who alleges that Instagram is among a slew of platforms that caused her anxiety and
00:20depression growing up. Zuckerberg was pressed about whether or not Instagram is addictive,
00:25and he dodged the question by saying that it's a useful platform and that's why people keep coming
00:30back to it. I think a lot of social media users would probably roll their eyes at this claim because
00:35what is actually useful about doomscrolling, which is what they're monetizing, your eyeballs and your
00:42time. He also said that a reasonable company should try to help people who use their services.
00:47In my view, it's not quite clear how Meta is doing that. And he also acknowledged that KGM is among
00:54a set of people who lie about their age in order to access their services. I think a lot of
00:59Gen Zers
00:59know from experience that it's pretty simple to just do a little bit of arithmetic with your birth
01:04year and you're up and running. Last week, Instagram CEO Adam Mossery also testified and drew scrutiny
01:09when he said that KGM's up to 16 hours per day usage was not necessarily addiction. It's clear that
01:17these companies are just not interested in acknowledging the fact that kids are clearly using these platforms
01:23compulsively in a way that's deteriorating their quality of life. They're designed to be addictive.
01:28They're designed like slot machines and children without fully formed brains cannot adequately resist
01:34them. It doesn't seem like there's any good faith changes coming down the pipeline on any of these
01:39platforms. And it's really going to be up to family members, parents, community members, educators
01:44to instill young people with the skills and the values to use these platforms in the most effective
01:51and healthy way possible.
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