Meta’s Zuckerberg grilled by lawyers in landmark US social media addiction trial

Meta ⁠Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back in court on Wednesday against a lawyer’s suggestion that he had misled Congress about the design of its social media platforms, as a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues.Zuckerberg was questioned on his statements to Congress in 2024, at a hearing where he said the company did not give its teams the goal of maximising time spent on its apps.Mark ‌Lanier, a lawyer for a woman who accuses Meta of harming her mental health when she was a child, showed jurors emails from 2014 and 2015 in which Zuckerberg laid out aims to increase time spent on the app by double-digit percentage points.Zuckerberg said that while Meta previously had goals related to the amount of time users spent on the app, it has since changed its approach.“If you are trying to say my testimony was not accurate, I strongly disagree with that,” Zuckerberg said.Amy Neville speaks to the media in Los Angeles on Wednesday, as she holds a picture of her son Alexander, who died at 14 from fentanyl bought via social media. Photo: AFPThe appearance was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on ⁠the mental health of young users.