Senators are grilling the social media giant after the Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram was damaging teenagers’ mental health.
U.S. lawmakers have heavily criticized Facebook Inc. for the company’s plans to protect children using its social media platforms after a leaked internal investigation showed the social media giant knew how its Instagram operated App harmed teenage mental health.
The Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing came Thursday after the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published articles on how Facebook knew that its photo-sharing platform gave some teenagers, especially girls, a poor sense of their self-image made.
Amid growing questions, Facebook interrupted plans to develop Instagram Kids earlier this week, saying it wanted “time to work with parents, experts, policy makers and regulators to hear their concerns.”
At the hearing on Thursday, Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global security, denied the way the WSJ described the results of the investigation. She also said the company was working on releasing additional internal studies to make the results more transparent.
Facebook’s Antigone Davis is seen on a screen testifying to a Senate subcommittee on Thursday [Tom Brenner/Pool via Reuters]
“We care a lot about the safety of the people on our platform,” said Davis. “We take this issue very seriously … We have implemented several protective measures to create safe and age-appropriate experiences for people between the ages of 13 and 17.”
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal was not convinced, however, and called the results of the internal report “a bomb”.
“It is strong, compelling and compelling evidence that Facebook knows about the harmful effects of its website on children and has withheld those facts and discoveries,” he said during the hearing.
Democratic Senator Edward Markey added, “IG stands for Instagram, but it also stands for Insta-greed.”
‘Very devastating’
Comparisons were made with the tobacco industry’s cover-up of the harmful effects of cigarettes at a meeting in which US senators from both major parties came together to criticize Facebook and Instagram, a platform that Facebook has owned since 2012 and is valued at 100 billion US dollar is valued.
Patty Culhane of Al Jazeera, who reported from Washington, DC, said the congressional hearings could “potentially lead to new regulations not just on Instagram and Facebook but on all social media as they are marketed to children.”
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri also denied the WSJ’s findings on Monday.
“The WSJ’s recent coverage of our research on teenage experiences on Instagram has raised many questions. To be clear, I disagree with how the Journal reported on our research, ”he said in a statement.
But Danny Weiss, chief advocacy officer at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group focused on improving the impact of technology on children, said the internal investigation report was indeed “a bomb”.
“The results that the WSJ brought out through a whistleblower are very devastating to Facebook and the way it works, and Facebook’s attitudes towards children and adolescents – a special group of people in need of special protection,” said Weiss across from Al Jazeera.
He said parents need better education about what their children are doing on social media, and tech companies need to better minimize the reach of toxic content on their platforms. Finally, Weiss said, “There is clearly a need for governments to step in and hold technology companies accountable.”
A second hearing is scheduled for Tuesday and will include a Facebook whistleblower.
The whistleblower is expected to reveal his identity on Sunday in a recorded interview for 60 Minutes, a US news program. In a preview, the show described the woman as a former Facebook employee who went through tens of thousands of pages of research.
