Sep 11, 2026 · 28 min
Whistleblower says Meta’s safety fixes never matched its harms
Arturo Bejar's warning to Meta
The episode examines whether Meta’s settlement addresses the design and corporate priorities that expose young users to harm.
- 1Arturo Bejar says Meta employees understood serious risks to teenagers but struggled to get safety features approved.
- 2Bejar’s survey found unwanted sexual advances were far more common among young Instagram users than Meta publicly reported.
- 3The settlement’s time limits may reduce usage without preventing harms that can occur within seconds of opening an app.
Don't miss
Bejar presents survey data showing that one in eight 13-to-15-year-olds experienced an unwanted sexual advance on Instagram in the previous week.
The brief
Former Meta employee Arturo Bejar describes returning to the company after his teenage daughter experienced an unwanted sexual advance on Instagram, convinced he could help fix the problem.
Bejar says employees understood many harms affecting teenagers, but safety features struggled for approval while engagement-focused changes moved easily—an organizational failure, not a knowledge gap.
His independent survey of nearly a quarter-million Instagram users found that one in eight 13-to-15-year-olds had experienced an unwanted sexual advance in the previous week.
After warnings to Mark Zuckerberg drew no response, Bejar took the same evidence to lawmakers and later court, at significant personal cost.
Bejar welcomes Meta’s settlement but argues that time limits and nighttime blocks cannot make social media safe unless product design and corporate priorities change.
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