Published : 21 Aug 2026, 04:17 AM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:34 AM
A former Meta safety engineer tells a US jury the company knew its platforms exposed children to predators and violent content, but largely failed to act.
Arturo Béjar, testifying this week in a landmark trial in Oakland, California, says he raised the issue repeatedly with senior executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but got little response.
Béjar says he briefed Zuckerberg on the issue around 100 times, reports The Guardian.
In a 2021 email, he warned the CEO of ongoing harm to teenagers on Facebook and Instagram, sent after Zuckerberg publicly said Meta did not prioritise profit over safety.
"I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook's commitment to young people," Béjar tells the court.
Asked if Zuckerberg replied, Béjar said: "No. I didn't hear back from him."
Béjar is the first witness in the case, brought by 29 US state attorneys general who accuse Meta of designing addictive products for young users and unlawfully collecting data on under-13s.
"Meta didn't do its share," says California deputy attorney general Megan O'Neill.
Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri are expected to testify later in the trial, which could run six weeks.
Meta denies the allegations. Company lawyer Paul Schmidt says the platform bars under-13s and has disabled more than a million such accounts.
Damages could reach $200 billion if Meta is found liable, roughly equal to its 2025 revenue.
Béjar says features like infinite scroll boosted ad revenue by keeping users engaged, and that his own daughter's experience with unwanted messages on Instagram first pushed him to investigate.
A survey he ran found 51 percent of teens reported a harmful experience on Instagram within a week, but content was removed just 0.02 percent of the time.
