Meta is defending its efforts to protect children online as it faces a growing number of lawsuits accusing the social media company of harming young users.
In the latest case, Meta is fighting allegations in a California federal court that it helped fuel the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing Instagram and Facebook features to keep children engaged for long periods.
Four US states are seeking billions of dollars in damages and major changes to the way Meta operates the platforms.
"Meta takes seriously" issues involving children's mental health and what they see and do on social media, the company's lawyer Paul Schmidt said in opening arguments this week.
Critics, however, say Meta's safety measures have not gone far enough and that many of them do not work properly.
Marc Berkman, executive director of the Organization for Social Media Safety, said Meta introduced many of its safeguards mainly in response to public pressure rather than genuine concern for children's safety.
Measures targeting harmful content
Many of Meta's safety changes have focused on bullying, harassment and offensive content.
Instagram has long allowed users to block others. Over the years, both Instagram and Facebook have added tools to report problematic accounts and inappropriate content.
In 2016, Instagram introduced options to delete or filter offensive comments. It later added warnings encouraging users to think twice before posting potentially harmful content, as well as controls for limiting comments and tags.
Meta says adults who are not already connected with teenagers are prevented from starting private conversations with them. The company has also increased efforts to prevent children under 13 — the minimum age for Facebook and Instagram accounts — from using the platforms.
Schmidt acknowledged that some users still provide false birth dates when signing up but said Meta takes its age restrictions seriously.
The company also displays warnings and support information when users search Instagram for topics such as suicide, self-harm and eating disorders.
Meta points to its "Teen Accounts", introduced in 2024, as another major safety measure. The accounts limit the type of photos and videos teenagers can view, broadly following restrictions similar to those of a PG-13 movie unless parents give permission for wider access.
Critics say such measures are more about public relations than effective protection.
A September 2025 report by former Meta employee and whistleblower Arturo Béjar and four online safety groups accused the company of failing to take meaningful action on child safety.
Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at Fairplay, which helped prepare the report, said researchers reviewed 47 of Meta's 53 teen safety features on Instagram and found that 60% were either unavailable or did not work as advertised.
Meta rejected the report's conclusions as "misleading" and "dangerously speculative."
Concerns over endless scrolling
Researchers also question whether Meta has done enough to prevent children from becoming overly dependent on social media.
Ashley Shea, a Cornell University Ph.D. candidate who studies social media and online spaces, said features such as endless scrolling, pull-to-refresh designs, frequent notifications and algorithm-based recommendations can keep users engaged.
She said these features can take advantage of vulnerabilities in young people's developing brains, particularly their desire for rewards.
Shea acknowledged that Meta has taken important steps to deal with harmful content, cyberbullying and sexual predators. But she said she has not seen similar efforts to reduce the addictive effects of features designed to capture users' attention.
Time limits and parental controls
Meta also points to parental controls and other time-management tools as evidence that it is addressing concerns over excessive social media use.
Schmidt said some teenagers struggle to control how much time they spend on social media and highlighted tools such as parental supervision and in-app reminders that encourage teenagers to take a break after repeatedly viewing similar content or using the platforms late at night.
Hinkle said these tools are voluntary and difficult to set up, making them inadequate.
Béjar also criticized Meta's "Take a Break" feature during testimony Wednesday, saying it is "designed to fail" because users must activate it themselves and few choose to do so.
Berkman said technology companies are built to increase revenue, which for social media platforms often means encouraging users, including children, to spend as much time as possible on their services.
Shea said the lawsuits are significant because they focus on whether social media platforms are harmful because of the way they are designed, rather than only because of the content users encounter.
She added that growing pressure from lawmakers and lawsuits could force broader changes across the technology industry.
"The momentum only continues to grow," Shea said, adding that companies driven by profit are likely to respond more quickly as they face greater financial pressure from legal action.