Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram at Meta Platforms Inc., arrives at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 in Oakland, California, USA.
Jason Henry | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Instagram Chief Executive Adam Mosseri testified Tuesday in his social media addiction trial that he does not instruct his employees not to provide information that could expose him to legal liability.
“I’m not going to encourage my team to hide anything,” Mosseri said during his first day of testimony in federal court in Oakland, California. He was responding to questioning from trial attorney Jason Slotover of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
Mr. Slotover asked Mr. Mosseri if he knew that. meta Lawyers may have asked the company’s internal staff not to share information related to safety research on children under 13 or mental health concerns among teens. Mosseri said he would “not be surprised” if Mehta’s lawyers reviewed child-related safety studies for complex legal and policy reasons, but he would be surprised if the motive was to provide cover for potential litigation or to mislead the public.
Opening arguments began last week in the landmark trial against Mehta, co-chaired by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the attorneys general of Colorado, New Jersey, and Kentucky. Together, these represent a bipartisan group of 29 AGs.
The AG coalition alleges that Meta violated the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and consumer protection laws and is seeking fines that could reach $200 billion. At the heart of their claims is that Meta executives, including Mosseri and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, misrepresented certain child safety features and related internal investigations to the public. Mr. Mehta denies the allegations.
In Mosseri’s testimony, which began later in the day, the Instagram chief acknowledged that the company limited the number of employees with access to certain internal investigations after whistleblower Francis Haugen leaked company documents related to child and youth mental health in 2021.
Mosseri said Meta made the change because it “didn’t want anything taken out of context,” as executives said in leaked documents published in the Wall Street Journal as part of the “Facebook Files” series.
Mr. Mosseri said plaintiffs’ lawyers were wrong to point out that Meta also reduced the number of researchers studying youth mental health harm after the Haugen leak.
“I don’t agree with that characterization,” Mosseri said. “I don’t think the team got smaller. It was just more centralized.”
Mosseri’s testimony will continue Wednesday.
Attention: The meta is facing its biggest test yet, and its future is at stake.
