Zuckerberg takes stand in social media trial as jury hears that he’s trained on how to avoid being ‘fake, robotic and corporate’

583 points by theindependentonline a day ago on reddit | 31 comments

[OP] theindependentonline | a day ago

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has taken the stand at a Los Angeles courthouse to testify in a civil trial on social media addiction, a closely-watched case that could have major implications for the tech industry.

The 41-year-old billionaire is being grilled by attorneys, who argue that social media platforms are deliberately engineered as “digital casinos” to lure young users into constant engagement. Zuckerberg’s testimony before the jury at the Los Angeles County Superior Court is not being live streamed, but reporters in the room are providing updates.

At the center of the case is a 20-year-old California woman, identified in court papers only as KGM, who filed a lawsuit against Meta, TikTok, Google, and Snap in 2022. She accused the companies of following Big Tobacco’s playbook: instilling addictive behaviors in teens while dismissing their own research showing their products posed health risks.

latoyap3bbles9084 | a day ago

wow, this sounds huge tbh. curious to see how this plays out and what it means for social media norms

Primary-Swimmer-2229 | a day ago

wait the title is just blank? i feel like i'm about to unlock some reddit mystery or something lol

YAOMTC | 19 hours ago

Title of what? I don't see anything blank

Primary-Swimmer-2229 | a day ago

lol the irony in this is wild. gotta love reddit for stuff like this popping up randomly

YAOMTC | 19 hours ago

Care to explain what's ironic about this?

Nephrited | 11 hours ago

Probably that it's been posted on Reddit, an addictive social media site.

Garfieldealswarlock | a day ago

Works about as well as Meta’s AI, or the metaverse, or any of his other initiatives. His attempts to appear as just a harmless cool casual dude bro fall flat

pafrac | a day ago

It's difficult for a complete sociopath to appear normal. You can't fake feelings you don't understand. Elon has much the same issue.

Garfieldealswarlock | a day ago

They’re also obviously dorks that people wouldn’t hang out with unless they were paid, hence the obsession with money.

twoworldsin1 | a day ago

I hope they fired that trainer 🤣🤣

Wandering_butnotlost | a day ago

I thought when they upgraded his positronic net to ver. 3.0.7 back in 2024, they fixed the fake, robotic and corporate traits. I guess not.

ThisManInBlack | a day ago

The only individual known to have the ability to lick his own eyeballs clean.

Long-Region5088 | a day ago

lol man wastes his money on training clearly

Otherwise_doe1998 | 21 hours ago

His lawyers are more expensive than your lawyers and at all times he has a lawsuit against him. I still hope she wins. There have to be failsafes for these people that aren't self imposed.

vector_o | a day ago

Uhuh

The thing he should've avoided was going to Epstein's island and sitting at the table with all the other monsters

evaz3sty8713 | 23 hours ago

bruh kinda confused by the title but i'm here for the chaos lol

the--dud | 10 hours ago

That would be an amazing reality show! ❤️ Watching a bunch of different behavioural trainers, psychologist and therapists just working on zuck for hours and hours like the tin man trying to find his heart. I'd pay good money to watch that!

KindClock9732 | a day ago

He’s super rich, so I can only assume he’s in the pedophile ring

ApprehensiveDiver868 | a day ago

didn't expct to find gold here but wow, this post is pure internet magic lol

danmickla | 20 hours ago

he had a long conversation with an LLM

edjumication | 17 hours ago

Taking training to appear less corporate is the most corporate thing ever.

Major_Honey_4461 | 17 hours ago

I'm still waiting for him to be indicted for perjury during his Congressional testimony.

PrincipleNo3966 | 17 hours ago

More human than human?

death_by_chocolate | 15 hours ago

"Smile, Mark! Smile!" clap-clap "Good boy! Here's a cookie!" shhCHOMP

Fungalsuds | 14 hours ago

So he’s a fake corporate robot who needed training on how to not appear so

Maleficent-Bed-7796 | 23 hours ago

Is this not the same way how they made and stil makining us ,addicted to most of the food ,drinks, and medicines?

Impossible_Lie_4172 | 22 hours ago

This on the parents and their children fault, Zuckerberg isn’t the one forcing you to watch and scroll through instagram every day 💀

NudeCeleryMan | 6 hours ago

I work at a tech company. Back in the 2010-2015.era the company would pay for experts in slot machine design to come teach us how to make our app and site addictive via feedback mechanisms. There was a whole cottage industry spun up on how to create "engagement loops" and "viral loops." Speakers who wrote these books would come show us how to do it. We had to do product breakdowns of Candy Crush to specifically identify what made it so addictive.

This isn't a secret. Anyone working on tech back then could testify on what the explicit goals were that we were being pushed to deliver.