Mark Zuckerberg Tries to Play It Safe in Social Media Addiction Trial Testimony

Zuckerberg repeatedly fell backmost connected accusing Lanier of "mischaracterizing" his erstwhile statements. When it came to emails, Zuckerberg typically objected based connected however aged the connection was, oregon his deficiency of familiarity with the Meta employees involved. “I don’t deliberation so, no,” helium replied erstwhile directed to clarify if helium knew Karina Newton, Instagram’s caput of nationalist argumentation successful 2021. And Zuckerberg ne'er failed to constituent retired erstwhile helium wasn’t really connected an email thread entered arsenic evidence.

Perhaps anticipating these detached and repetitive talking points from Zuckerberg—who claimed implicit and implicit that immoderate accrued engagement from a idiosyncratic connected Facebook oregon Instagram simply reflected the “value” of those apps—Lanier aboriginal connected suggested that the CEO has been coached to code these issues. “You person extended media training,” helium said. “I deliberation I’m benignant of well-known to beryllium beauteous atrocious astatine this,” Zuckerberg protested, getting a uncommon laughter from the courtroom. Lanier went connected to contiguous Meta documents outlining connection strategies for Zuckerberg, describing his squad arsenic “telling you what benignant of answers to give,” including successful a discourse specified arsenic testifying nether oath. “I’m not definite what you’re trying to imply,” Zuckerberg said. In the afternoon, Meta counsel Paul Schmidt returned to that enactment of questioning, asking if Zuckerberg had to talk to the media due to the fact that of his relation arsenic caput of a large business. “More than I would like,” Zuckerberg said, to much laughter.

In an adjacent more, well, “meta” infinitesimal aft the tribunal had returned from lunch, Kuhl struck a stern code by informing each successful the country that anyone wearing “glasses that record”—such arsenic the AI-equipped Oakley and Ray-Ban glasses sold by Meta for up to $499—had to region them portion attending the proceedings, wherever some video and audio recordings are prohibited.

K.G.M.’s suit and the others to travel are caller successful their sidestepping of Section 230, a instrumentality that has protected tech companies from liability for contented created by users connected their platforms. As such, Zuckerberg stuck to a playbook that framed the suit arsenic a cardinal misunderstanding of however Meta works. When Lanier presented grounds that Meta teams were moving connected expanding the minutes users spent connected their platforms each day, Zuckerberg countered that the institution had agelong agone moved connected from those objectives, oregon that those numbers were not adjacent “goals” per se, conscionable metrics of competitiveness wrong the industry. When Lanier questioned if Meta was simply hiding down an property bounds argumentation that was “unenforced” and possibly “unenforceable,” per an email from Nick Clegg, Meta's erstwhile president of planetary affairs, Zuckerberg calmly deflected with a communicative astir radical circumventing their safeguards contempt continual improvements connected that front.

Lanier, though, could ever instrumentality to K.G.M., who helium said had signed up for Instagram astatine the property of 9, immoderate 5 years earlier the app started asking users for their day successful 2019. While Zuckerberg could much oregon little brushwood disconnected interior information on, say, the request to person tweens into loyal teen users, oregon Meta’s evident rejection of the alarming adept investigation they had commissioned connected the risks of Instagram’s “beauty filters,” helium didn’t person a prepackaged effect to Lanier’s expansive finale: a billboard-sized tarp, which took up fractional the width of the courtroom and required 7 radical to hold, of hundreds of posts from K.G.M.’s Instagram account. As Zuckerberg blinked hard astatine the immense display, disposable lone to himself, Kuhl, and the jury, Lanier said it was a measurement of the sheer magnitude of clip K.G.M. had poured into the app. “In a sense, y’all ain these pictures,” helium added. “I’m not definite that’s accurate,” Zuckerberg replied.

When Lanier had finished and Schmidt was fixed the accidental to acceptable Zuckerberg up for an alternate imaginativeness of Meta arsenic a utopia of transportation and escaped expression, the laminitis rapidly gained his stride again. “I wanted radical to person a bully acquisition with it,” helium said of the company’s platforms. Then, a infinitesimal later: “People displacement their clip people according to what they find valuable.”