Whistleblower Arturo Béjar Testifies Meta Prioritized Growth Over Teen Safety

Meta was infused with a culture that obsessed over user numbers while consistently pushing safety aside, whistleblower Arturo Béjar testified Wednesday in the landmark child safety trial against the social media giant. Only one person could have changed that, Béjar said: CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He didn't.

"At the end of the day, it was the company culture that Mark had created that made it so that it was practically impossible to deliver features that addressed the wellbeing and safety issues that we've been talking about," Béjar told the federal court in Oakland, California.

Béjar is a key witness for a consortium of states led by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which allege Meta violated consumer and child data protection laws and lied to the public about the risks its platforms posed to young users. State attorneys say Meta designed Facebook and Instagram with features like infinite scrolling and the "like" button to hook teens and keep them online longer. Meta has denied the allegations; in his opening statement, company attorney Paul Schmidt argued Meta was sensitive to risks to teens and did not deceive the public.

Béjar, who worked on safety issues at Meta for eight years, said he interacted with Zuckerberg dozens of times and accused him of lying in a 2021 Facebook post that called it "just not true" that Meta prioritizes profit over safety. "Based on my experience at Meta, that is not an accurate statement," Béjar said.

He testified that internal studies repeatedly flagged risks for teens, but efforts to address them were consistently blocked in favor of policies that boosted usership and revenue. "Safety was not a meaningful priority," he said.

On cross-examination, Meta attorney Brian Stekloff pressed Béjar on whether he had "solved" any safety risks during his tenure. Béjar said he had not, but called features like video autoplay, "like" counters and infinite scroll "inherently unsafe for teenagers." He said safety tools such as Instagram's "quiet mode" were "designed to fail" because they are optional rather than default. "Most people will not turn the setting on," he said. "It's like you have to turn on the air bag every time you get into the car."

The trial, expected to last about six weeks, is one of thousands of lawsuits accusing social media companies of designing addictive platforms that have harmed youth mental health.