Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta’s alleged strategy laid out in first week

诱导、留存、收割与隐瞒：Meta 的所谓策略在庭审首周被曝光

“Meta’s business model worked especially well for kids.” “Meta 的商业模式在儿童身上尤其奏效。”

Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta’s alleged strategy laid out in first week of landmark trial. In trial that opened on Tuesday, California and 28 other states accused the company of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting children’s privacy. 诱导、留存、收割与隐瞒：Meta 的所谓策略在这一里程碑式审判的首周被曝光。在周二开庭的审判中，加利福尼亚州及其他 28 个州指控该公司设计了令人上瘾的网站，并违反了保护儿童隐私的法律。

Meta’s business can be boiled down to four words that begin with the letter H: hook, hold, harvest, hide, according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company. 据一位起诉这家全球最大社交媒体公司的律师称，Meta 的业务可以归结为四个以字母 H 开头的词：诱导（hook）、留存（hold）、收割（harvest）和隐瞒（hide）。

The owner of Facebook and Instagram “hooks” in users, “holds” them on its platforms for as long as possible, “harvests” their data and then “hides” the truth from the public, she argued. 她辩称，Facebook 和 Instagram 的所有者通过“诱导”用户，尽可能长时间地将他们“留存”在平台上，并“收割”其数据，随后向公众“隐瞒”真相。

“Meta’s business model worked especially well for kids,” said Megan O’Neill, a lawyer for the state of California. “Meta 的商业模式在儿童身上尤其奏效，”加利福尼亚州律师梅根·奥尼尔（Megan O’Neill）表示。

Her accusation opened the blockbuster trial against the US tech company on Tuesday in Oakland, California, just north of Meta’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. California has joined 28 other US states in suing the £1tn ($1.36tn) company for allegedly designing addictive products that lead to children being harmed. 她的指控拉开了针对这家美国科技巨头的重磅审判序幕。审判于周二在加利福尼亚州奥克兰市进行，该地位于 Meta 硅谷总部以北。加州已联合美国其他 28 个州起诉这家市值 1 万亿英镑（约 1.36 万亿美元）的公司，指控其设计了导致儿童受到伤害的成瘾性产品。

Eight jurors heard from O’Neill and attorneys for Meta this week, along with testimony from former employees and a psychologist. The lawsuit centers on allegations that the company violated US federal child privacy laws and state-level consumer protection laws by collecting data on children under the age of 13 without parental permission. Over the course of the trial, the jury is additionally expected to hear from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri. 本周，八名陪审员听取了奥尼尔和 Meta 律师的陈述，以及前员工和一位心理学家的证词。诉讼的核心指控是，该公司在未经家长许可的情况下收集 13 岁以下儿童的数据，违反了美国联邦儿童隐私法和州级消费者保护法。在审判过程中，陪审团预计还将听取 Meta 首席执行官马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）和 Instagram 首席执行官亚当·莫塞里（Adam Mosseri）的证词。

The threat to Meta is existential. If the company is found liable, damages could be as high as $200bn – an amount equivalent to the company’s 2025 annual revenue. The states are also asking that Meta be forced to change the design of its products to make them safer for children, which could have permanent effects on the company’s business model and how its social media platforms operate. 这对 Meta 构成了生存威胁。如果公司被判有罪，赔偿金额可能高达 2000 亿美元——这一数字相当于该公司 2025 年的年度营收。各州还要求强制 Meta 改变其产品设计，使其对儿童更安全，这可能会对公司的商业模式及其社交媒体平台的运营方式产生永久性影响。

Meta has denied all allegations. Liza Crenshaw, a spokesperson for the company, said: “Rather than sticking to the facts or the law, the states have instead decided to chase an outlandish payout.” Meta 否认了所有指控。公司发言人丽莎·克伦肖（Liza Crenshaw）表示：“各州并没有坚持事实或法律，而是决定追求一笔离谱的赔偿金。”

During opening statements, Paul Schmidt, an attorney for Meta, said there is “no dispute” people can struggle with social media, but that Meta had “come up with tools to try and address that”. He added the company does not allow children under the age of 13 to register for accounts on its social networks and that it had disabled more than 1m accounts of those young users. 在开庭陈述中，Meta 的律师保罗·施密特（Paul Schmidt）表示，人们在使用社交媒体时可能会遇到困难这一点“毫无争议”，但 Meta 已经“开发了工具来尝试解决这一问题”。他补充说，公司不允许 13 岁以下的儿童注册其社交网络账户，并且已经禁用了超过 100 万个此类年轻用户的账户。

The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks. The proceedings will be led by attorneys for the states of California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey. The jury’s role is advisory, which means they will give recommendations to the presiding judge, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will make the final decision on the verdict and damages. 此次审判预计将持续六到八周。诉讼程序将由加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、肯塔基州和新泽西州的律师主导。陪审团的角色是咨询性的，这意味着他们将向主审法官伊冯·冈萨雷斯·罗杰斯（Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers）提供建议，由法官对判决结果和赔偿金额做出最终决定。

Meta faces thousands of similar US lawsuits brought by families, school districts and other attorneys general. The company lost the first two of those cases to go to trial in March. In the first, the company was ordered to pay nearly $1bn to the state of New Mexico for allowing child sexual exploitation on its platforms; and in the second, it was found liable for deliberately designing addictive products that hooked one young woman and was ordered to pay her more than $4m. Meta 面临着数千起类似的美国诉讼，这些诉讼由家庭、学区和其他州检察长提起。今年 3 月，该公司输掉了其中最先开庭的两起案件。在第一起案件中，该公司因允许其平台上存在儿童性剥削行为，被判向新墨西哥州支付近 10 亿美元；在第二起案件中，该公司因蓄意设计成瘾性产品诱导一名年轻女性而被判承担责任，并被勒令向其支付超过 400 万美元。

The star witness to take the stand in the trial’s first week was Arturo Béjar, a safety engineer at Meta who worked there in two separate stints between 2009 and 2021. Since leaving, Béjar has been an outspoken critic of the company, testifying before a US Senate committee and serving as an expert witness in other cases that involve social media’s harm to children. 审判首周出庭的明星证人是阿图罗·贝哈尔（Arturo Béjar），他曾是 Meta 的安全工程师，于 2009 年至 2021 年间两次在该公司任职。离职后，贝哈尔一直直言不讳地批评该公司，曾在美国参议院委员会作证，并在其他涉及社交媒体对儿童造成伤害的案件中担任专家证人。

In Oakland, Béjar testified that his motivation for pursuing solutions for harms to children was his own teenage daughter’s treatment on Instagram. He said she received unwanted sexual advances and photos of male genitals as well as misogynistic insults. Later, she told her father that reporting these abuses through Instagram’s established processes was either ineffective or not possible. 在奥克兰，贝哈尔作证称，他寻求解决儿童伤害问题的动力源于他自己十几岁的女儿在 Instagram 上的遭遇。他说，女儿收到了不想要的性骚扰和男性生殖器照片，以及厌女症的侮辱。后来，女儿告诉父亲，通过 Instagram 既定的流程举报这些虐待行为要么无效，要么根本无法操作。

“Meta is taking a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ strategy” when it comes to child safety, Béjar testified. “在儿童安全问题上，Meta 采取的是一种‘不问、不说’的策略，”贝哈尔作证说。

Béjar said that his job often included briefing Zuckerberg and that he had spoken with the CEO more than 100 times in the course of his work. 贝哈尔表示，他的工作经常包括向扎克伯格汇报，在工作期间他与这位首席执行官交谈过 100 多次。

During Béjar’s testimony, attorneys for the government showed the jury an email he sent Zuckerberg in 2021, which outlined a survey he had conducted of teens’ experiences on Instagram. The results showed 51% of users said “yes” to having bad or harmful experiences within the previous seven days and that content was taken down only 0.02% of the time. 在贝哈尔作证期间，政府律师向陪审团展示了他 2021 年发给扎克伯格的一封电子邮件，其中概述了他对青少年在 Instagram 上体验所做的调查。结果显示，51% 的用户表示在过去七天内有过糟糕或有害的体验，而相关内容被删除的比例仅为 0.02%。

Béjar testified he sent that data to Zuckerberg because, “in my experience, when Mark makes something a priority, mountains move.” 贝哈尔作证说，他把这些数据发给扎克伯格是因为：“根据我的经验，当马克将某事列为优先事项时，事情就会有重大进展。”

“Did he ever respond to you?” the attorney asked. “他回复过你吗？”律师问道。

“No,” Béjar replied. “I didn’t hear back from him.” “没有，”贝哈尔回答。“我没有收到他的回复。”

Meta fought to bar Béjar from testifying at the trial, filing a series of motions. Meta 曾试图阻止贝哈尔在审判中作证，并提交了一系列动议。