Arturo Béjar, a former consultant on Instagram's wellbeing team, has become a key whistleblower against Meta, testifying under oath at least seven times since 2023, including in a landmark California trial that led to an $18bn settlement. His testimony, which included the statement “You just cannot trust Mark Zuckerberg with kids,” was driven by his daughter's experience of harassment on Instagram and his belief that the company prioritised growth over safety.
From insider to whistleblower
Béjar first joined Facebook in 2009, during a period of idealism, but left in 2015 to spend more time with his children after a divorce. He returned in 2019 on a two-year contract as a consultant on Instagram's wellbeing team, still believing that Zuckerberg was unaware of the harms. However, he soon found evidence to the contrary: “What I started finding when I came back is that they did know. They knew about addiction, they knew how bad it was. They knew about Molly Russell.”
In October 2021, on the same day Frances Haugen testified to the US Senate, Béjar sent an email to Zuckerberg and other senior executives detailing survey findings: 24.4% of 13-15-year-olds on Instagram reported unwanted advances, 21.8% reported bullying in the past seven days, and 51% of users reported a bad or harmful experience, with only 0.02% of such content being taken down. Zuckerberg never replied.
Zuckerberg's focus on winning
Béjar describes Zuckerberg as fiercely competitive and lacking empathy: “I don’t recall him ever being empathetic to the harm that somebody was experiencing and wanting to make that better … The only thing that really consistently came across in all my interactions with him was winning.” He recalls a moment when Zuckerberg told him, “I’m not here for fun – I’m here for impact.”
Béjar’s concerns were personal. His daughter, in her early teens around 2018, told him she regularly received sexist comments and unsolicited nude photos from men on Instagram, and that reporting them never led to meaningful action. He compares social media to the tobacco industry: “This is the equivalent of handing your kids a cigarette and being like, ‘Hey, you’ll be cooler if you smoke.’”
Landmark settlement and ongoing impact
The California trial, brought by attorneys general of 29 US states, ended two days after Béjar’s testimony, with Meta settling for up to $18bn and agreeing to major changes, including two-hour daily time limits for under-18s, blocking notifications during school hours, and turning off autoplay. Béjar calls it “an extraordinary accomplishment,” noting that “Nobody else in the world has got them to agree that they will reduce the hours kids spend on the platform.”
Meta has faced further legal challenges, including a $942m fine in a New Mexico case. Béjar continues to campaign for independent assessment of social media safety, comparing it to vehicle emissions monitoring. He says, “It’s still just the beginning, but I do feel hope.”
