Jack Bradley is a Washington correspondent for NTD News based in Washington, D.C. Jack previously anchored "NTD Newsroom" and worked as an assistant producer for the show. 

Jack Bradley

NTD Plus

News

News with integrity, from the United States and around the world. Focused reports and analyses that shed light on major issues the world deserves to know. NTD Evening News airs daily at 6 p.m. ET.

NTD Evening News

Joint Base Charleston Renamed for Late Sen. Lindsey Graham

Dave Martin is NTD's Senior Sports Reporter and sports analyst. He also hosts "Data Hub" segments during NTD's special election coverage, "The Nation Decides."

Dave Martin

WNBA to Discuss Rules After Ex-NBA Players Challenge Eligibility Requirements

Jason Blair is a national correspondent for NTD News based in California. 

Jason Blair

RFK Jr. Closes Ingredient Loophole, Moves to Define Ultra-Processed Food

Cary Dunst is the news anchor for NTD Evening News. He is also the co-host of NTD Good Morning.


Cary Dunst

‘COVID Woke People up to This Forced Vaccination’: Policy Analyst

Christina Corona is a California-based reporter for NTD News. She primarily covers California news, politics, and entertainment.  

Christina Corona

Bug Fire Explodes to 15,000 Acres Near Reno

Fiona Ji is a reporter based at NTD's global headquarters in New York City, where she covers local news.

Fiona Ji

Wisconsin Gears up for Consequential Gubernatorial Primary

‘We’re Doing the Right Thing’ by Sanctioning Russia: Former US Ambassador to OSCE

El Monte Unveils Memorial for Fallen Officers

Arian Pasdar is an international correspondent for NTD News based in South America. His reporting focuses on immigration and key events in Latin America.

Arian Pasdar

De La Espriella Takes Office in Colombia, Replacing Left-Leaning Predecessor Petro

Sam Wang is a Washington correspondent for NTD News based in Washington, D.C. Sam covers politics on Capitol Hill, and U.S.-China relations. 

Sam Wang

DOJ: Duke Law School Discriminated Based On Race

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (Aug. 10)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (Aug. 7)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (August 6)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (August 5)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (August 4)

Paul Greaney is an NTD news anchor and producer. Since joining the company in 2018, he has anchored the station’s flagship Evening News broadcast, launched the NTD Business show, and produced documentary reports on pointed issues. 

The highlight of Paul’s time in the field was his coverage of the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Paul Greaney

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (Aug. 2)

Full Episodes

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (Aug. 1)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (July 31)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (July 30)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (July 29)

NTD Movies

NTD+ Movies

The Unrestricted War

Reuters is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages.

Reuters

US News

Cyber Defense Agency Warns Hackers Are Increasingly Targeting Water Systems

Juliet Song is an international correspondent exclusively covering China news for NTD. She primarily contributes to NTD's "China in Focus," covering U.S.-China relations, the Chinese regime's human rights abuses, and domestic unrest inside China.

Juliet Song

Shows

Fast, compelling, first-hand news from China. China in Focus airs Monday–Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET.

China in Focus

2.8 Million People in China Evacuated Amid Typhoon Bavi

NTD Newsroom comprises teams of reporters, editors, and producers assigned to cover breaking news and other stories.


NTD Newsroom

Breaking news and in-depth analysis from the United States and beyond. We bring you the latest updates, exclusive insights, and sharp discussions on the most pressing issues. NTD Newsroom airs Monday–Friday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET.

US Announces Visa Restrictions Targeting Cybercriminals

Joseph Lord is a congressional reporter for The Epoch Times.


Joseph Lord

Politics

Congress

House Passes Legislation to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent

Rudy Blalock is a Southern California-based daily news reporter for NTD. Originally from Michigan, he moved to California in 2017 and the sunshine and ocean have kept him here since. In his free time, he may be found underwater scuba diving, on top of a mountain hiking or snowboarding, or at home meditating—which helps fuel his active lifestyle.

Rudy Blalock

RFK Jr. Declares Public Health Emergency for Wildfire-Ravaged Washington State

Tiffany Meier is an anchor, China news investigative reporter, and producer for NTD News based at the network's global headquarters in New York City. Tiffany anchors NTD's flagship shows "NTD Evening News" and "China in Focus" and co-moderates NTD's special election coverage "The Nation Decides." She produced the award-winning NTD Original documentary "Hollywood Takeover: China's Control in the Film Industry."


Tiffany Meier

Japan to Counter China With 'Overall National Strength'; US: 'No Nation Will Dominate Indo-Pacific'

Rachel Acenas is an experienced journalist and TV news reporter and anchor covering breaking stories and contributing original news content for NTD's digital team.

Rachel Acenas

Immigration &amp; Border Security

Trump Admin Launches Program Requiring Some Immigrants to Post Bond up to $250,000

News you can trust from the U.S. and around the world. Critical information and insight. We cover the stories that others don’t. NTD News Today airs Monday–Friday at 11 a.m. ET.

NTD News Today

Florida Ticket Wins $800 Million Mega Millions Jackpot

Troy Myers is a regional reporter based in St. Augustine, Florida. His background includes breaking, criminal justice, and investigative writing for local news, producing on a national morning newscast in Washington, D.C., and working with an award-winning, weekly investigative news program. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his dog at the beach.

Troy Myers

Jason Perry is an Army veteran and NTD's national security correspondent. Jason primarily covers border security, national defense, foreign wars, and veterans' issues.

Jason Perry

Courts

Appeals Court Upholds Block on Trump Order to Tighten Mail-In Voting, Citizenship Verification

Beige Luciano-Adams is an investigative reporter covering Los Angeles and statewide issues in California. She has covered politics, arts, culture, and social issues for a variety of outlets, including LA Weekly and MediaNews Group publications.  

Beige Luciano-Adams

LOS ANGELES—On the most anticipated day yet of a landmark social media addiction trial that began Feb. 9, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 18 to answer allegations that he engineered his social media platforms to be addictive to children despite knowing the potential harms.

Plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier wasted no time setting the moral tone, opening with the suggestion that there are different ways to deal with vulnerable people—help them, ignore them, or, he said, pulling on the last words in his honeyed Southern drawl, “prey upon them.”

At the center of the case is a 19-year-old California woman identified in court documents by the initials “K.G.M.” or “Kelsey G.M,” who is accusing tech giants of engineering products that rewire young people’s brains and trap them in a cycle of addiction and mental illness.

The complaint alleges the plaintiff became addicted to Instagram as a child and suffered resulting harms, including depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia.

Hers is one of a handful of bellwether trials that will presage how thousands of related cases brought by children, parents, school districts, and state attorneys general are argued and tried—and what kind of damages might be expected.

Like Big Tobacco and national opioid settlements before them, these cases mark a generational turning point and could have profound long-term impacts on how the industry operates.
<h2>Grilling the CEO</h2>
At the heart of the plaintiff’s strategy is a comparison of Zuckerberg’s previous statements—including those made under oath in congressional testimony—to a cache of thousands of pages of internal company documents, emails, and message chains, recently unsealed.

In a courtroom packed with media, lawyers, and grieving parents who say their kids’ deaths were instigated by Meta’s apps, Lanier grilled the CEO on statements he made related to Instagram age restrictions; whether the company has sought to drive user time on its apps, including among children; and scientific consensus on links between social media usage and youth mental health harms.

Zuckerberg stuck to a library of stock responses, mostly reiterating his “north star” was to create a product that provides value to users, with the amount of time they choose to spend on a given app being a fortuitous byproduct.

“I think if people use something in the near-term but aren’t happy with what they’re doing ... or using it more than they want to, I don’t think it’s good for us in the long term,” Zuckerberg said.

The company has evolved policies and features over time to respond to concerns in a way that balances different stakeholder interests—users, free speech advocates, and those concerned with problematic use, including among children—according to Zuckerberg.

A rare moment of levity arrived when Lanier asked him if he’d had lots of media training.

“I don’t know,” Zuckerberg mused. “I think I’m actually sort of well-known to be very bad at this.”

Testifying before Congress in 2024, Zuckerberg said that he did not give his Instagram teams goals “around increasing the amount of time people spend,” and that children under 13 were not allowed on the app.

He also testified to Congress, and reiterated on Feb. 18, that he didn’t believe the current scientific literature supported claims of a link between social media use and increased mental health harms among young people.

That was contradicted last week by a star witness for the plaintiff, Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke, who reported social media addiction cases are skyrocketing among young users, and detailed the ways in which app features are designed to exploit vulnerabilities in their developing brains.

In a cascade of internal slide presentations, reports, emails, and text chains, Lanier showed where insiders at Meta revealed that they viewed the algorithm as “absolutely tuned to maximize engagement in a maximally principle-less way” and were squarely focused on increasing time spent on its apps, including among teens and children under age 13.

“When Kaley is 10 years old and she’s on Instagram, at that time you were trying to set goals to drive 'time spent,' weren’t you?” Lanier charged.

Plaintiffs claim that Meta and other platforms intentionally designed features to hook young people and keep them consuming content, even when they don’t want to.

Zuckerberg clarified that the company had long since abandoned setting goals for its teams to simply increase “time spent” on its apps, opting instead for a focus on “creating value” that would keep users engaged over the long-term.

“At some point, I decided I didn’t want the teams to have specific goals around time,” he said. “The basic assumption I have is that if something is valuable, people will do it more.” He said that was different from setting a goal for employees to encourage people to spend time on the app.

Most internal documents showing a focus on “time spent” dated from 2017 or 2018. But in a 2022 performance review, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said his primary goal was to ensure the app remained culturally relevant, “as measured by time, and sharing, particularly with teens.”

In the cut-throat, fast-moving tech world, Zuckerberg explained, there are few metrics by which a company can measure its progress against competitors, and time spent is one of them.
<h2>Teens and Tweens</h2>
In more than one email exchange, employees noted Zuckerberg had “decided our top priority for the company in 2017 is teens.”

In a chat, employees wrote, “Oh good, we’re going after 13-year-olds now?” Others responded, “Yeah, Zuck has been talking about it for awhile,” and “It was gross the last time he mentioned it.”

On cross examination, attorneys for the defendant suggested such references were only to potential products, now abandoned, that would be specifically designed for children under 13.

“I think in general there are a meaningful number of people who lie about their age in order to use the services,” Zuckerberg said, noting a “bunch of systems” the company has evolved over time to try to identify and remove underage users.

A 2018 market analysis presentation shared internally noted tweens had the highest retention of any age group in the country, with people who joined Facebook at 11 years old having nearly four times the long-term retention as those who joined as 20-year-olds, and that teen adoption on Instagram had grown more rapidly year after year.

“If we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens,” the presentation suggested.

Zuckerberg said the document was misconstrued and might refer to attempts to build services specifically for users under 13.

Teen use, he said, accounts for less than 1 percent of revenue.

Answering charges on internal documents, including a study Facebook commissioned from the University of Chicago suggesting that beauty filters cause mental health harms to teenage girls, Zuckerberg said he attempted to strike a balance of free expression and safety.

“I felt like it would be going too far to tell people they couldn’t make them,” he said, later noting Meta never created its own filters to mimic cosmetic surgery.

While temporarily banning filters that could not be replicated with makeup, Meta ultimately opted to allow users to create and use them, but stopped short of recommending the features. The company <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/instagram-addiction-doesnt-exist-according-to-apps-top-executive-5984438">banned filters</a> that mimic or promote cosmetic surgery.<span style="color: #ff00ff;"> </span>

The witness also cited a report from the National Academy of Sciences that found no evidence to support a causal link between social media use and negative mental health impacts for young people.

In a coda to his examination of the tech titan, Lanier unfurled a mosaic of K.G.M.’s Instagram photos, printed on a scroll of canvas that stretched approximately 30 feet, snaking around the inner well of the courthouse.

Zuckerberg owns around 13 percent of the company; his share is currently valued at around $215 billion.

Asked about his economic motives, the CEO noted he has pledged to give away the vast majority of his wealth, and already gives billions to scientific research. The more valuable the company, he reasoned, the more money he can give to such causes.

“Have you pledged any of your money to help the victims of social media?” Lanier asked.

Zuckerberg said he disagreed with the characterization of the question.

<em>From <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/tech/meta-chief-zuckerberg-testifies-in-high-stakes-social-media-addiction-trial-in-los-angeles-5987457">The Epoch Times</a></em>

Latest

Science &amp; Tech

Paywall Related

01_Lead Story

04_Top Stories

Free for Subscribers

Latest Clips

Management

03_Featured

California

02_Second Lead

State News

Latest and breaking news, documentaries, movies, and lifestyle content on NTD+.
 
Empower your knowledge and elevate your spirit with NTD+, your go-to destination for truthful news, insightful documentaries, and captivating lifestyle content that enriches your life.

Meta Chief Zuckerberg Testifies in High-Stakes Social Media Addiction Trial in Los Angeles

Stefania Cox is an NTD News anchor and national correspondent based at the network's global headquarters in New York City. Stefania anchors "NTD Newsroom," and co-anchors "NTD News Today" weekdays at 10:00 am ET.

Stefania Cox

NTD News Today Full Broadcast (August 10)

We present news that is truthful and based on facts, outside of the political fog. Instead of focusing on the negative things happening around us, our mission is to give our viewers a good morning with empathetic and uplifting stories. Our aim is to provide an antidote to negativity by shining a light on the best side of people. We speak to inspiring people who positively impact communities, pursue topics that represent our common human values, and will never miss an opportunity to bring you heartwarming stories.