Zuckerberg Testifies Teens Drive Just 1% of Meta Revenue in Addiction Trial

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is now at the center of what could become a defining courtroom battle over social media and youth safety, with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg spending roughly six hours on the witness stand in Los Angeles Superior Court. The trial, which began Feb. 9 and is scheduled to run through the end of March, focuses on a 20-year-old plaintiff, Kaley G.M., who alleges that Instagram and Google’s YouTube contributed to years of mental health struggles. Under pointed questioning, Zuckerberg described enforcing Instagram’s age limits as very difficult, citing what he called a potentially meaningful number of users who may misrepresent their age. He testified that Meta has introduced proactive tools to detect and remove accounts used by children under 13, while characterizing the issue as a challenging, industrywide problem rather than a simple compliance gap.

The stakes could extend well beyond a single case. The proceeding is widely viewed as an early test for thousands of similar lawsuits targeting Meta and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), as well as TikTok and Snap (NYSE:SNAP), though the latter two are not participating after reaching confidential settlements in this matter. While the companies have denied wrongdoing and argue they have implemented guardrails for young users, they could face billions of dollars in potential damages if early juries rule against them. In court, plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier highlighted internal documents suggesting Meta viewed younger demographics as important to long-term platform success, including materials discussing pre-teens and older teenagers. Zuckerberg, however, sought to contextualize the financial impact, stating that teens account for about 1% of company revenue and emphasizing that Meta generates almost all of its revenue from advertising.

The testimony also revisited internal debates around age verification and child safety controls. Zuckerberg said Meta ultimately required new users to provide their date of birth when creating accounts, following internal discussions about privacy sensitivity, and added that he wished the company had reached that position sooner. At the same time, he argued that reliable age verification remains difficult, particularly for children without driver’s licenses, and suggested that shifting more responsibility to phone makers could be a very wise and simple approach. In recent years, Meta has rolled out additional measures, including teen accounts introduced in late 2024 that automatically restrict certain content and interactions for users under 18, updated default content settings to what it described as PG-13 for minors, and new limits on live streaming for younger teens. For investors, the outcome could shape not only potential legal exposure, but also how large platforms balance youth engagement, product design and regulatory scrutiny going forward.