Former Meta safety engineer Arturo Béjar has delivered explosive testimony before a federal jury in Oakland, California, revealing that CEO Mark Zuckerberg allegedly ignored direct warnings regarding severe online risks to teenagers.
Speaking during a high-profile civil trial brought by 29 United States state attorneys general, Béjar claimed the social media giant maintained a deliberate 'don't ask, don't tell' policy regarding youth protection.
The whistleblower argued that despite briefing senior leadership extensively, executive action stalled because engagement metrics directly drive corporate advertising revenue.
Plaintiffs are seeking up to $200 billion in damages alongside sweeping algorithmic reforms, arguing that Instagram and Facebook were intentionally engineered to hook young users despite internal data highlighting widespread emotional distress and grooming risks, a claim that Meta firmly denies as it prepares to defend its parental controls and age-verification protocols before the jury.
As the landmark proceedings unfold across the courtroom, the intense scrutiny places mounting pressure on Silicon Valley executives, exposing the stark gap between public safety pledges and internal corporate realities.
Whistleblower Claims Zuckerberg Ignored Safety Warnings
Arturo Béjar told the federal jury that he briefed senior leadership extensively and spoke directly with Mark Zuckerberg on numerous occasions.
Meta faces a trial brought by state attorneys general. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are presenting the case, which alleges that Meta deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to keep young users engaged, misled the public about safety risks and improperly collected data from children under 13.
Béjar worked at Meta for about eight years across two periods. He was employed by Facebook from 2009 to 2015 and returned as an independent contractor between 2019 and 2021 to work on safety and teenage wellbeing.
He told jurors that his responsibilities had previously included briefing Zuckerberg on product concerns and estimated he had spoken to the CEO at least 100 times.
Béjar said he contacted Zuckerberg directly in 2021 after the Meta chief publicly insisted that the company did not place profit ahead of safety. In the email, he warned about frequent reports of harmful experiences among young users.
'I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook's commitment to young people,' Béjar testified. The state's lawyer then asked whether Zuckerberg had ever replied. 'No,' Béjar said. 'I didn't hear back from him.'
The former engineer said he sent the concerns to Zuckerberg because, 'in my experience, when Mark makes something a priority, mountains move.' His claim was not that the CEO lacked the authority to act. It was that the authority was not used.
Béjar also accused Meta's recommendation systems of pushing children towards sexual predators, violent material and graphic images. He said he repeatedly raised concerns with Facebook and Instagram executives, but the problems were not properly addressed.
His evidence went beyond internal emails. Béjar described research into teenagers' experiences on Instagram, including a survey in which 51% of respondents said they had experienced something harmful or negative during the previous seven days. He testified that the content was removed only 0.02% of the time.
Those figures are central to the states' argument that Meta's public safety measurements failed to reflect what young users were actually experiencing. Béjar said the company focused on the prevalence of content that breached its policies, rather than the harm users reported.
In a separate testimony, he said internal surveys showed a substantial gap between the company's published figures and the experiences described by teenagers.
A Daughter's Experience Became Evidence
Béjar said one reason he began examining the issue was his own teenage daughter's experience on Instagram. He told the court that she received unwanted sexual advances, photographs of male genitalia and misogynistic insults.
When she attempted to report the abuse, he said, the platform's reporting systems were ineffective or unavailable. 'She got a good following, at the price of harm,' Béjar said during cross-examination. That personal detail gave the testimony a sharper edge, though Meta's lawyer used it to challenge Béjar's conclusions.
The attorney highlighted that he had maintained a good working relationship with the company, had not left on bad terms and remained proud of his work there. Béjar answered 'yes' to each question.
The exchange mattered because Meta is expected to argue that Béjar's evidence reflects criticism from a former employee rather than the company's overall approach.
Its lawyer, Paul Schmidt, told jurors there was 'no dispute' that some people struggle with social media, but said Meta had 'come up with tools to try and address that.'
Schmidt also said children under 13 were not permitted to create accounts and that Meta had disabled more than 1 million accounts belonging to underage users. Meta has said the states' claims are unsubstantiated and that the evidence will demonstrate its longstanding efforts to support young people.
The company's defence is likely to focus on parental controls, time-management features and attempts to identify and remove underage accounts. Béjar, however, described at least one break reminder as 'designed to fail,' arguing that it was not the default setting and could easily be ignored.
He also said Meta had technology capable of flagging potentially underage users but chose not to pursue the issue aggressively.
The stakes are enormous. The states are seeking damages that could reach $200bn, as well as court-ordered changes to the design of Meta's products. The trial is expected to last at least six weeks, with Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri among the executives expected to testify.
For Béjar, the dispute comes down to an uncomfortable calculation. 'On scroll, the more views you have, the more ads you sell, the more revenue you make,' he told the jury. And that, rather than any single offending post, may prove to be the heart of the case.
