Brian Boland recounted his transition from “profound blind faith” in Meta to becoming an outspoken critic of the company.
Brian Boland recounted his transition from “profound blind faith” in Meta to becoming an outspoken critic of the company.
Brian Boland invested over a decade in discovering a method to generate profits for Meta. On Thursday, he informed a jury in California that it motivated attracting an increasing number of users, including adolescents, to Facebook and Instagram, despite potential hazards.
Boland’s statements were made a day after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered his testimony in a case regarding whether Meta and YouTube bear responsibility for allegedly endangering a young woman’s mental health. Zuckerberg portrayed Meta’s goal as balancing safety with freedom of expression, rather than profit. Boland’s function was to counter this by elucidating how Meta generates revenue, and how this influences the design of its platforms. Boland asserted that Zuckerberg cultivated a climate that valued growth and profit over user welfare from the top down. He mentioned being labeled a whistleblower—a term Meta has broadly tried to limit fearing it would bias the jury—but which the judge has generally permitted. Over his 11 years at Meta, Boland stated that he transitioned from having “profound blind faith” in the organization to developing a “strong conviction that competition, power, and growth were the aspects Mark Zuckerberg prioritized the most.”
Boland last held the position of VP of partnerships at Meta before his departure in 2020, where he focused on bringing monetizable content to the platform, and had previously taken on various advertising roles starting in 2009. He testified that Facebook’s notorious early slogan “move fast and break things” encapsulated “a cultural ethos at the organization.” He explained that the underlying concept of the motto urged to generally “not contemplate the potential issues a product might cause, but simply release it and learn as you go.” At the peak of its importance within the company, employees would sit down at their desks to find a note stating, “what will you disrupt today?” Boland asserted during his testimony.
Zuckerberg consistently clarified his priorities for the firm, according to Boland. He’d announce them in all-hands meetings, leaving no ambiguity regarding what the company should target, whether it involved making its products mobile-first or staying ahead of competitors. When Zuckerberg recognized that then-Facebook needed to prepare to rival a rumored Google social network adversary (which he did not explicitly name but seemed to allude to Google+), Boland recalled a digital countdown clock in the office representing the time left to accomplish their objectives during what was labeled a “lockdown.” Throughout his tenure at the company, Boland testified that there was never a lockdown focused on user safety, and Zuckerberg allegedly ingrained into engineers the notion that “the emphasis was on winning growth and engagement.”
Meta has continually denied that it seeks to maximize user engagement on its platforms at the expense of their wellbeing. Recently, both Zuckerberg and Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri testified that creating platforms that are enjoyable and beneficial for users is in their long-term interest and is the main factor driving their decisions.
Boland contests this. “From my perspective, when there were occasions to genuinely comprehend the potentially harmful effects of the products, those were not prioritized,” he asserted. “They represented more of an issue than a chance to remedy.”
When safety concerns arose from press coverage or regulatory inquiries, Boland stated, “the foremost reaction was to strategize on how to navigate the press cycle, regarding what the media was communicating, rather than saying, ‘let’s pause and truly understand.’” Although Boland expressed to his advertising-focused team that they should be the ones identifying “flawed aspects,” rather than those external to the company, he indicated that mindset did not extend across the entire organization.
On the previous day’s stand, Zuckerberg referenced documents from around 2019 indicating disagreements among his employees regarding his decisions, asserting they demonstrated a culture that fosters a diversity of opinions. Boland, however, testified that while that might have been true during his earlier years, it subsequently evolved into “a significantly closed culture.”
Since the jury can only deliberate on decisions and products directly made by Meta, rather than on user-generated content, lead plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier had Boland illustrate the workings of Meta’s algorithm and the decision-making process behind its creation and testing. Algorithms possess an “enormous amount of power,” Boland stated, and are “completely relentless” in pursuing their programmed objectives—often, at Meta, the emphasis was allegedly on engagement. “There’s no moral algorithm; that’s a non-existent concept,” Boland remarked. “It doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t care.”
During his Wednesday testimony, Zuckerberg noted that Boland “formed some strong political views” towards the conclusion of his time with the company. (Neither Zuckerberg nor Boland specified details, but in a 2025 blog post, Boland indicated he was removing his Facebook account partly due to disagreements with how Meta addressed events like January 6th, stating he believed “Facebook had played a role in disseminating ‘Stop the Steal’ propaganda and facilitating this attempted coup.”) Lanier spent time establishing that Boland was respected among peers, presenting a CNBC article regarding his exit that included a positive quote from his then-superior, along with a mention of an unnamed source who reportedly characterized Boland as having a strong moral foundation.
During cross-examination, Meta attorney Phyllis Jones clarified that Boland was not involved with teams focusing on youth safety within the company. Boland conceded that advertising business models are not inherently negative, nor are algorithms. He also acknowledged that many of his concerns centered on the content users shared, which is not pertinent to the ongoing case.
During his direct examination, Lanier questioned whether Boland had ever directly conveyed his concerns to Zuckerberg. Boland recounted informing the CEO that he had observed troubling data indicating “harmful effects” of the company’s algorithms and urged them to investigate further. He recalled Zuckerberg responding in a manner akin to, “I hope there are still aspects you take pride in.” Shortly thereafter, he mentioned, he resigned.
Boland disclosed that he left behind over $10 million in unvested Meta stock when he departed, although he admitted he earned more than that throughout his time there. He stated he still finds it “anxiety-inducing” every time he voices his concerns about the company. “This is an immensely powerful organization,” he remarked.
