A landmark trial surrounding social media addiction brought Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to the stand in the first instance of the founder addressing concerns of child online safety in front of a jury.

Zuckerberg’s court appearance follows on from several other social media leaders facing the heat as lawyers test out the validity of claims that social media is addictive and harmful by design.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri recently took the stand to defend the social media site, saying that users could not get “clinically addicted” to social media in the traditional sense.

The trial against Meta surrounds a 20-year-old woman, known as KGM, who says that social media – and her alleged compulsion to use it – worsened her suicidal ideation and depression.

The lawsuit brought charges against Meta, Google’s Youtube, TikTok, and Snapchat, though the latter two settled out of court shortly before the trial began.

While other aspects of the claim focussed on the design of social media algorithms and pages to encourage compulsive and addictive behaviour, Zuckerberg’s testimony centered on if the social media giant was doing enough to keep young children from accessing the firm’s platforms.

Lawyers representing KGM presented Zuckerberg with internal documents which showed Zuckerberg and other Meta employees discussing Instagram and Facebook usage by teens and younger children.

Meta’s terms and conditions say that Instagram and Facebook can only be used by those 13 and over.

In documents from 2015 and 2017, Zuckerberg was discussing how to increase teenage usage, pushing for a 12% increase in time spent in 2015. In 2017, an executive said that “Mark [Zuckerberg] has decided the top priority for the company is teens.”

Zuckerberg said that this is no longer how Meta operates or how it prioritises its strategies, saying the emails and comments reflect an earlier time at the firm.

In his defence, Zuckerberg pointed to recent tools teens can elect to use to minimise their usage of the app, such as alerts on time spent and the silencing of notifications at night. However, court proceedings showed that these tools were not very popular, with only 1.1% of teen users electing to use daily use limits.

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Documents from 2018 showed that Meta employees discussing their platforms’ retention of “tweens”, which typically includes the ages of 9-12.

Zuckerberg said that he regretted that the firm did not make faster progress on preventing users under 13 from accessing its platforms, but contended that the company had found “the right place over time.”

KGM started using social media when she was nine years old, which would be considered in breach of Meta’s policies.

The lawsuit represents just one of hundreds making their way through courts in the US as people take aim at social media giants for allegations of purposefully addictive design and the targeting of children.