Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in a landmark trial examining social media’s impact on children.
By Muhammad MubashirPublished On 19 Feb 2026
New York —
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was grilled Wednesday about whether his company intentionally designed Instagram to be addictive, in front of the young woman accusing Meta and YouTube of hooking her as a child and damaging her mental health.
The Meta CEO, testifying before a jury for the first time on years-old claims about social media harming children’s mental health, said he believed he has navigated the safety of young users “in a reasonable way.”
But parents who traveled from across the country for the trial, saying their children had been hurt or died because of social media, painted a different picture outside the Los Angeles courtroom, describing a company that they say preyed on and exploited their children in the name of profits.
The outcome of this trial, in which a young woman, “Kaley,” accuses Meta and YouTube of designing addictive features to hook her as a small child, could serve as a bellwether for hundreds of other cases. If the companies lose, they could be on the hook for potentially billions in damages and forced to make changes to platforms that have shaped how many people live.
Zuckerberg exited from a back door of the courthouse after concluding more than five hours of testimony on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg and Kaley
Before the trial began, nearly a dozen parents who say their children were harmed gathered hands outside the courthouse before Zuckerberg arrived.
Zuckerberg entered through the front door of the Los Angeles Superior courthouse around 8:30 a.m. local time, past a swarm of parents, media and jurors also waiting in line to enter. He did not respond to a question about what his message would be to parents who say their children were harmed by social media.
Kaley herself was also in the tightly packed courtroom to hear Zuckerberg’s testimony. Her lawyer, Mark Lanier, previously said she would not be present for much of the trial proceedings because she has social anxiety and difficulty being around crowds, although she is expected to testify later in the trial.
Parents who say they lost their children because of social media stand outside Los Angeles Superior Court ahead of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's arrival to testify in a key test case accusing Meta and YouTube of harming kids' mental health through addictive platforms on February 18, 2026.
Mike Blake/Reuters
At one point in the testimony, Lanier pointed to Zuckerberg’s 2024 congressional testimony that “the existing body of scientific work” has not shown a link between social media and worse mental health outcomes for young people.
“We get feedback from a handful of different stakeholders, including people who study wellbeing,” Zuckerberg said. “I took into account all of that info and I think I navigated this in a reasonable way.”
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom during a break, Julianna Arnold said it was “surreal” to see Zuckerberg testify, after years of calling on the company to make greater changes. Arnold traces the death of her 17-year-old daughter Coco to Instagram.
“The intention of the company was to prey on teens … exploit them so they can make greater profits,” Arnold said. “That was done intentionally, not by accident.”
At the end of his questioning, Lanier brought out a dramatic prop: a poster multiple feet long, held by seven people, with hundreds of photos Kaley had posted to Instagram, as a way of hammering home her compulsive use of the platform.
Questioning Instagram’s age policies
Zuckerberg was pressed on Wednesday about whether children younger than 13 have access to Instagram. The app technically requires users to be 13 to sign up, and Zuckerberg said younger children are “not allowed on Instagram.”
But Lanier showed an internal document from 2015 that estimated over 4 million Instagram users were under 13, which it said represented “30% of all 10-12 year olds in the US.” Lanier has said the now-20-year-old plaintiff, Kaley, began using Instagram at age 9.
Lanier pointed out that it wasn’t until December 2019 that Instagram began asking new users to input a birthdate when signing up; previously, it just asked them to confirm they were above the age of 13. Instagram in August 2021 started asking existing users to provide a birthdate if they hadn’t done so previously, as part of a safety push for young people.
That means Kaley wasn’t asked for her age at all when she joined the platform.
Mark Lanier, the plaintiffs lawyer, arrives to the Los Angeles Superior Court at United States Court House on February 18, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. A 20-year-old California woman sued Meta and YouTube accusing them of building addictive platforms causing harm to children.
Zuckerberg said that in 2019, before the birthdate rule was implemented, there was “some concern around privacy,” but he thinks they eventually landed on the right policy.
Lanier has said Kaley sometimes used Instagram for “several hours a day” and was once on the platform for more than 16 hours in a single day, despite her mother’s attempts to curb her use. Kaley claims the app’s addictive features led her to develop anxiety, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts and that she experienced bullying and sextortion on Instagram.
A Meta spokesperson has said “we strongly disagree” with the allegations in Kaley’s lawsuit and “are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.” The company’s lawyer has argued that it was Kaley’s difficult family life, rather than social media, that caused her mental health challenges. YouTube also denies the lawsuit’s claims.
