There you have it! Instagram's own boss just admitted the quiet part under oath.
August 27, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 comments
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There you have it! Instagram's own boss just admitted the quiet part under oath.
Adam Mosseri, who has run Instagram since 2018, testified this week in the Meta child-safety trial. An internal Meta document put teen adoption of the "Take a Break" reminder at 1.8 percent in 2021. Not eighteen. One point eight.
That is the feature Meta pointed to for years as proof it cared about kids. A pop-up that nudges a teen to close the app after endless scrolling. Almost nobody used it, and Meta knew.
Here is the tell. In 2021 Meta bragged that "more than 90 percent of teens who turned the feature on kept it on." True, and meaningless, because it only counted the tiny slice who ever switched it on. The other 98 percent never touched it.
Meta did not make the tool automatic until late 2024, three years later, and only after 29 states had already sued. Mosseri's own words on the stand: "Most teens didn't want it. We decided to push forward with it anyway."
That is the whole game. Build a safety tool nobody turns on, then hide behind opt-in rates you already know will fail. We do not protect our kids online. We outsource it to Big Tech and hope they police themselves. They don't.
So I stopped waiting. I homeschool my three daughters on values and real skills instead of handing them a glowing feed. At six and seven they each wrote their own book on QuestBooks.ai. Arlette's France-tastic. Elise's Muffin Blasts Off. Julie's Liberty Clue. Ownership over passive scrolling. Building instead of being farmed.
I get my facts from unbiasedheadlines.com, not an outrage algorithm. This story is there: https://lnkd.in/ePZvCRdd
Whose job is it to protect your kid, the platform's or yours?
Adam Mosseri, who has run Instagram since 2018, testified this week in the Meta child-safety trial. An internal Meta document put teen adoption of the "Take a Break" reminder at 1.8 percent in 2021. Not eighteen. One point eight.
That is the feature Meta pointed to for years as proof it cared about kids. A pop-up that nudges a teen to close the app after endless scrolling. Almost nobody used it, and Meta knew.
Here is the tell. In 2021 Meta bragged that "more than 90 percent of teens who turned the feature on kept it on." True, and meaningless, because it only counted the tiny slice who ever switched it on. The other 98 percent never touched it.
Meta did not make the tool automatic until late 2024, three years later, and only after 29 states had already sued. Mosseri's own words on the stand: "Most teens didn't want it. We decided to push forward with it anyway."
That is the whole game. Build a safety tool nobody turns on, then hide behind opt-in rates you already know will fail. We do not protect our kids online. We outsource it to Big Tech and hope they police themselves. They don't.
So I stopped waiting. I homeschool my three daughters on values and real skills instead of handing them a glowing feed. At six and seven they each wrote their own book on QuestBooks.ai. Arlette's France-tastic. Elise's Muffin Blasts Off. Julie's Liberty Clue. Ownership over passive scrolling. Building instead of being farmed.
I get my facts from unbiasedheadlines.com, not an outrage algorithm. This story is there: https://lnkd.in/ePZvCRdd
Whose job is it to protect your kid, the platform's or yours?