A bombshell testimony from a former Meta safety engineer has cast a harsh light on the company’s internal approach to youth protection, suggesting that Mark Zuckerberg knowingly misled the public about his commitment to child safety. Arturo Béjar, who spent eight years at the tech giant across two different tenures, told a federal court this week that Meta operated under a don’t ask, don’t tell strategy regarding the harms its platforms inflicted on minors. According to Béjar, the company remained aware that its algorithms were pushing violent imagery and connecting children with sexual predators, yet failed to take meaningful action despite repeated warnings.
Béjar testified that he briefed Zuckerberg personally on these critical failures at least 100 times. In one specific instance from 2021, the engineer emailed the CEO shortly after Zuckerberg had publicly claimed that Meta does not prioritize profits over safety. Béjar argued that this created a false impression of the company’s values, noting that while he reached out to Zuckerberg specifically because the CEO possesses the power to move mountains when he chooses a priority, his urgent warnings went completely unanswered. This lack of response serves as a central pillar for prosecutors who argue that Meta ignored systemic dangers to maintain user engagement and ad revenue.
The trial, brought by twenty nine US state attorneys general in Oakland, California, alleges that Meta deliberately engineered addictive features like infinite scroll to keep young users hooked regardless of the psychological cost. Beyond the mental health concerns, legal officials accuse the trillion dollar firm of illegally collecting data on children under thirteen without parental consent. During his testimony, Béjar revealed heartbreaking personal motivation for his crusade, sharing that his own teenage daughter suffered through unsolicited sexual images and misogynistic abuse on Instagram and found the platform’s reporting tools essentially useless.
Meta has vigorously denied these allegations throughout the opening stages of the proceedings. Company lawyers acknowledged that some people struggle with social media but insisted that Meta developed necessary tools to combat those issues and actively removes underage accounts. However, if the court finds Meta liable for designing intentionally harmful products, the financial stakes are staggering. The company faces potential damages as high as 200 billion dollars and may be legally forced to overhaul its core business model to ensure it is safe for younger generations.
