Listen (Morning Edition): Former Meta employee on company’s settlement and the efficacy of its new safeguards

Former Meta employee on company's settlement and the efficacy of its new safeguards Former Meta employee on company's settlement and the efficacy of its new safeguards NPR's A Martinez speaks with former Meta researcher and whistleblower Jason Sattizahn about the efficacy of Meta's new teen safety features. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: For more on Meta's settlement, we've called up Jason Sattizahn. He's a user experience researcher who used to work for Meta. He later became a whistleblower who raised concerns about Meta's child safety practices before a U.S. Senate committee in 2025 and in high-profile trials. Jason, so California Attorney General Rob Bonta says the changes that Meta has committed to making will, quote, "make social media less dangerous for our kids and make a world of difference for children and their families." Jason, does that hold water? JASON SATTIZAHN: You know, listening to this settlement, seeing this come out yesterday, as a researcher who used to work at the company, this is a pretty big mixed bag. I think any win to hold tech accountable should be celebrated. But from my perspective, looking at this, it kind of goes either way. And it remains to be seen whether or not this will be effective. MARTÍNEZ: A pretty big mixed bag. That is not a ringing endorsement for this settlement. SATTIZAHN: (Laughter) I mean, you know, from a research perspective, when I think about the effectiveness, I sort of bucket these into two big, high-level questions we have to ask. This comes down to two things I actually just recently heard from your previous small segment is, are the people that need these tools really going to get them, which is something we don't think a lot about when we're holding these tech companies accountable? And how do we measure the long-term impact to even know that these tools are working? I think both of those are really important to dig into. MARTÍNEZ: And what would be that measure? What would be a way to say, hey, OK, this is actually making a difference? SATTIZAHN: Yeah, I mean, the claims in this trial and the trials that have been complimentary to this have been around addiction. They've been around emotional well-being, about behavioral changes. And from a research perspective, if we want to improve and say, hey, these tools are effective at addressing these for children and for adults, we only know that these tools will improve these things if you actually measure those things. As I testified in the Tennessee trial just a couple weeks ago - and I was slated to testify in the Oakland trial - it's these exact measurements that Meta was having researchers either not dig into or having us erase or remove information about from internal documents. So to turn about-face, to implement these tools and say they're effective, well, it would require us to measure addiction, to measure anxiety, to measure worry over time. And so if we're not measuring that - and in the settlement, I don't see anything requiring Meta to actually measure this impact on our children - then there's a big question mark on will these tools even have some sort of verification of if they're effective or not over time. MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, because measuring it, if things don't improve all of a sudden, is even worse, right? SATTIZAHN: Correct. MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. SATTIZAHN: And what we don't want to get to is into a hole where we placate ourselves, and we believe that these tools are functional, but we have no clear or ostensible way of measuring and seeing that these things are improving for ourselves over time. MARTÍNEZ: We just heard our reporter say that these changes will take years. Why so long? Why can't they just flip a switch? SATTIZAHN: It's not as easy as that. I think one thing that the last reporting brought up as well, that I wanted to dig into that relates to this, is that we don't think a lot about the efficiency of these safety tools as being related to something outside of the tools themselves. But if we don't understand how old parents or children are on the platform, how old these users are, it's really hard for us to say, hey, let's turn on limitations at night. Let's turn on limitations for notifications or access to Facebook or Instagram during the day. Because if you don't know if an account is a child, you can't really know if that tool is being turned on for a child or for an adult. And so the process of getting better age data takes a lot of time. The process of understanding statistically - is this good enough that we can really purely know that this is a child that's getting the safety tool? - it's going to take months if not years of gathering better age data, improving their age models. And then, as it says in the settlement, have a third-party individual come in and test this to make sure that it's actually getting to those who need it. MARTÍNEZ: And in the meantime, more kids could be getting addicted. SATTIZAHN: Hypothetically, that could happen. But just as I mentioned before... MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. SATTIZAHN: ...If we're not measuring levels of addiction or behavioral changes, we won't necessarily know, if it's not something that the settlement demands. MARTÍNEZ: For some of these restrictions, though, how hard do you think it'll be for kids to work around them? SATTIZAHN: You know, historically, as I've testified to and as others have as well, it's been incredibly easy for children to get around tech limitations both within platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, but also emerging hardware that we don't think a lot about yet, especially related to these cases. When we look at things, like I've testified to, like, virtual reality or hardware that is now integrating AI and social media, we've seen a very clear pattern where, you know, kids can get around it with really, really tiny changes that we might not be able to predict as the people building this technology. So in the past, it's been very easy. And so it could be very easy in the future as well. MARTÍNEZ: Just a few seconds left here, Jason. Do you think that this settlement will push Meta's competitors, TikTok and YouTube, to maybe adopt similar restrictions? SATTIZAHN: You know, it's a hope. And just as of yesterday, I saw that there was already an online media campaign of Meta asking their competitors like YouTube and TikTok to get on board now with, you know, keeping these individuals safe. Again, it's another big question mark. I hope it does. But I'm hoping it pushes for a larger cultural change. MARTÍNEZ: Jason Sattizahn is a former Meta researcher turned whistleblower. Jason, thanks. SATTIZAHN: Thank you. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.