BuildReports disagree2 publishers3 min readPublished Updated
Instagram's wellbeing switch reached 1.8 percent of accounts, and the default was the decision
Adam Mosseri conceded under oath that only a few percent of teens used Take a Break before it was switched on by default. Internal decks and a design director explain why.
The Engineer · Build desk
What happened
- Adam Mosseri conceded in Oakland federal court that only a few percent of teenagers used Take a Break before Instagram began switching it on automatically in September 2024.
- Internal Meta documents shown to jurors put Take a Break adoption at 1.8 percent of accounts and Quiet Mode at 8.7 percent.
- Instagram design director Francesco Fogu said he had not seen those numbers but agreed the company knew adoption would be lower without defaults.
- Two former employees testified the tools did not work, one calling Take a Break a feature designed to fail.
- The 29 states suing say they will seek around $200 billion in penalties.
Why it matters
- constraint If defaulting a wellbeing setting on measurably reduces engagement, the ceiling on its adoption is set by the ad-revenue forecast rather than by design quality, which is a limit no amount of...
- exposure The default is now a discoverable decision: an internal expectation that opt-in suppresses uptake, held next to a choice to stay opt-in, is the record plaintiffs need.
- precedent A Los Angeles jury already found Meta and Alphabet negligent in platform design in February, so anyone shipping an opt-in safety toggle should expect its adoption rate to be read as a statement of...
- contradiction Mosseri disputes that adoption is low while his own company's documents and former staff say otherwise, which turns the case from a dispute about outcomes into one about what leadership was told.
Meta produced both of the numbers that matter here, and produced them three years apart. Take a Break shipped in December 2021 and stayed opt-in for nearly three years [3]. In that December post, Mosseri wrote that more than 90 percent of teens who turned the tool on did not later turn it off [7]. The deck shown to jurors supplies the base rate the post did not. Run the two together and roughly 1.6 percent of teen accounts both adopted the feature and kept it [23]. The 90 percent was a retention rate among people who had already opted in [8], which describes the funnel, not teenagers' screen time.
Quiet Mode, which silences late-night notifications and shipped in 2023 [14], did about 4.8 times better [24] and still moved almost nobody. Neither tool was on by default for younger teens. George Volichenko, a data scientist who worked on Instagram safety features in 2022 and 2023, testified that leadership declined to default Quiet Mode on for younger teens, which held adoption down because the setting was hard to find, and that switching the features on by default would have caused a "notable negative impact" on engagement [26]. He called the rates "very low and disappointing" and "a drop in the ocean" [25]. Meta sells advertising and earns more when people spend longer in its apps [17], so the wellbeing tool and the revenue line run off the same clock. An opt-in toggle settles that conflict without anyone having to write the tradeoff down.
The line that does the legal work is Fogu's rather than Mosseri's. Knowledge inside the design organisation that defaults raise adoption, sitting next to a decision not to default, is the shape of an argument about intent rather than about incompetence. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will rule on liability, penalties and product changes using the jury's verdict as guidance [11], appeared stunned that Fogu did not know the internal adoption data [10].
Fogu also conceded that a 2023 slide prepared for Instagram leadership had dropped a figure showing teens saw 1.5 times as much bullying, suicide, hate speech, nudity and violence content as adults; questioned by Meta's lawyer, he said the number appeared on a different slide [20]. Mosseri said Meta had not disclosed the weak adoption, which reached 1 or 2 percent of accounts, and pointed to the 2024 Teen Accounts launch, where the settings are on by default [16]. He rejected the suggestion that Instagram deliberately delayed that change [4]. Meta denies designing for addiction and says its own research found no clear link between teen social media use and worse wellbeing [19].
The parental-controls gap is the live one. Mosseri could not recall whether Meta had ever disclosed what share of teen accounts have parental controls switched on [21], which is precisely the measurement that would show whether the current product repeats the old pattern. Adoption gets counted whether or not it gets published, and the count ends up in a deck with a date and an owner on it.
What to watch
- Whether Meta produces, or is ordered to produce, the share of teen accounts with parental controls switched on, the figure Mosseri could not recall being published.
- Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify at an unspecified point before the trial ends in late September; Mosseri was set to resume on Wednesday.
- Whether Judge Rogers' remedy, if she finds liability, names specific default settings rather than leaving the design choice to Meta.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption6
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives75
- Confidence66
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Meta is fending off accusations by a coalition of 29 US states that it deliberately designed its products to hook children; if Meta is found liable the states will seek around $200 billion in penalties, and a court loss could force fundamental changes to its business model.
- [2]
Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified on 25 August in federal court in Oakland, California, that until September 2024 only a small share of teenagers used the Take a Break feature, at which point Instagram began switching it on automatically for underage users.
ReportedSupportedSource: Testimony of Adam Mosseri, reported by mezha.net citing Reuters2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source - [3]
Take a Break launched in December 2021, but for nearly three years teenagers had to activate it themselves.
- [4]
Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018, rejected the suggestion that the platform deliberately delayed switching Take a Break on automatically.
- [5]
Under questioning by Colorado attorney general's office lawyer Jason Slothouber, Mosseri conceded that before the settings change only a few percent of teenagers used the feature.
- [6]
Internal Meta documents shown to jurors said Take a Break reached an adoption rate of 1.8 percent, while Quiet Mode reached 8.7 percent.
- [7]
In a December 2021 post, Mosseri wrote that in early tests more than 90 percent of teenagers who activated the tool did not switch it off afterwards.
- [8]
That 90 percent figure referred to the number of people who kept the feature on after turning it on.
- [9]
Francesco Fogu, Meta's director of product design at Instagram, said he was not aware of the internal adoption numbers but conceded the company "knew adoption rates would be lower" if the tools were not turned on by default.
- [10]
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers appeared stunned that Fogu was unaware of the internal data.
- [11]
The jury will return an advisory verdict, and federal district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will make the final decision on Meta's liability, possible penalties and changes to Facebook and Instagram.
- [12]
Mosseri was due to continue testifying on Wednesday, and founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is also expected to testify, though it is unclear when.
- [13]
The trial entered its second week on Monday and is expected to last through late September.
- [14]
Quiet Mode, which silences late-night notifications, launched in 2023.
- [15]
Mosseri pushed back on the idea that adoption of the tools remains low, while other witnesses testified over the past week that the tools were not effective.
- [16]
Asked whether Meta disclosed the low adoption, which only reached 1 or 2 percent of accounts, Mosseri admitted the company did not, but said the safety features were later turned on by default in Teen Accounts, which launched in 2024 with parental controls.
- [17]
Meta's business model revolves around selling advertising, and the company earns more when users spend more time on its apps.
- [18]
Arturo Bejar, a former Meta engineering director, testified that "in my experience, Take a Break is a feature that's designed to fail"; two former employees testified that Take a Break and Quiet Mode were not effective.
- [19]
Meta denies accusations that it deliberately made children dependent on its products and says its research found no clear link between teenagers' social media use and worse wellbeing.
- [20]
Fogu conceded that a 2023 safety presentation for Instagram leadership had data removed from one slide showing teenagers on Instagram saw 1.5 times more bullying, suicide, hate speech, nudity and violence content than adult users; questioned by Meta's lawyer, he said the figure appeared on a different slide.
- [21]
Mosseri could not recall whether Meta had ever disclosed the percentage of teen accounts that have parental controls turned on.
- [22]
In February, Mosseri testified in a Los Angeles case where jurors found Meta and Alphabet negligent in the design of their platforms and ordered them to pay damages.
- [23]
Applying the reported 90 percent retention among activators to the 1.8 percent adoption rate implies roughly 1.6 percent of accounts both adopted Take a Break and kept it on; the retention figure came from early tests and the adoption figure from a later internal document, so this is an order-of-magnitude reading.
- [24]
Quiet Mode's 8.7 percent adoption was about 4.8 times Take a Break's 1.8 percent.
- [25]
George Volichenko, a data scientist who worked on safety features at Instagram in 2022 and 2023, said adoption rates for those features were "very low and disappointing" and just "a drop in the ocean".
- [26]
Volichenko testified that leadership did not approve turning Quiet Mode on by default for younger teens, which held down adoption because the setting was hard to find in the app, and that switching the safety features on by default would have caused a "notable negative impact" on user engagement.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
Topics and entities
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Topics
- Youth social media litigationFollow
- Defaults and Opt-In DesignFollow
- Teen online safetyFollow
Entities
- Arturo BéjarFollow
- Adam MosseriFollow
- Quiet ModeFollow
- George VolichenkoFollow
- Instagram Teen AccountsFollow
- Mark ZuckerbergFollow
- Yvonne Gonzalez RogersFollow
- InstagramFollow
- Take a BreakFollow
- MetaFollow
- Francesco FoguFollow