Instagram boss to defend platform its researcher called a ‘drug’

Mosseri has long argued that social media, particularly Instagram, can be a positive for teens who seek friends and community online. Photo by Ethan Swope/Getty Images/Postmedia files

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Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is set to take the stand at a landmark trial over social media addiction and face a plaintiff attorney’s “very blunt questions” about how his platform balances safety and engagement.

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Mosseri will be the first company executive to testify during the Los Angeles trial, which started Monday and centres on a 20-year-old woman blaming Meta Platforms Inc.’s Instagram and Google’sYouTube for her years of mental health struggles.

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Lawyers are expected to question Mosseri Wednesday on internal company communications in which an employee says he “freaked out” when confronted with concerns about how Instagram affects the brains of young users, among other topics.

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The trial will serve as a critical test for thousands of lawsuits that target not only Meta and Google, but also TikTok Inc. and Snap Inc. The latter two companies 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.

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While the companies have denied wrongdoing, they face billions of dollars in potential damages if they don’t prevail in early trials.

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Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the woman who’s suing, told jurors that she would spend hours scrolling on Instagram every day, with her highest usage recorded as 16.2 hours on a single day in March 2022. Lanier said she felt “trapped” on the platform.

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During his opening statement, Lanier said he planned to ask Mosseri about a chain of messages between a Meta researcher and one of her colleagues. Lanier read excerpts from the messages to the jury.

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“IG is a drug,” the researcher said, referring to Instagram.

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“LOL, I mean, all social media. We’re basically pushers,” her colleague said.

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Later in the conversation, one of the two mentioned that they had raised concerns to “Adam” about how the platform was impacting people’s internal “reward tolerance.”

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“I know Adam doesn’t want to hear it,” one of them said. “He freaked out when I talked about dopamine in my teen fundamentals lead review, but it is undeniable. It is biological. It is psychological.”

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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.

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Before taking over Instagram, 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.

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News Feed is also considered the first product to popularize 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.