Adam Mosseri testified in federal court that he doesn't tell his team to hide anything from regulators or lawyers. This happened during a trial about social media addiction. The head of Instagram sat in a witness box and clarified that concealing information is not part of his management style.
The legal strategy here is bulletproof. Step one: get sued for addicting children to dopamine slot machines. Step two: send your top executive to explain that nobody ever said the words "hide the bad stuff." Step three: collect your victory because apparently we're all supposed to believe internal Meta communications read like a Montessori school newsletter.
Mosseri runs a platform with 2 billion users that algorithmically optimizes for engagement metrics tied directly to advertising revenue. But he wants the court to know he's never once turned to an engineer and whispered "maybe don't put that in the email." He's shocked anyone would suggest such a thing. He's insulted, really.
The trial centers on whether Meta designed its products to be addictive to minors. Mosseri's defense is that he simply manages people who build features, and those people simply write code, and that code simply keeps teenagers scrolling until 4 a.m. on a school night. Nobody hid anything. Everything was very transparent. The kids just can't stop looking at Reels because the product is incredibly well-designed, which is totally different from being designed to be addictive.
Retail traders who bought Meta shares hoping this testimony would tank the stock learned an important lesson: the market doesn't care if your app turns children into screen zombies as long as the ad revenue keeps printing. The stock didn't move. Mosseri walked out of court. Somewhere a 14-year-old refreshed her feed for the nine hundredth time today, and nobody hid a f*cking thing.
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
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