U. S. lawmakers on Thursday demanded commitments from Facebook to address developing considerations about the effect of its platforms on young people’s intellectual health, but a senior executive was confident the sites were already secure.
Senators questioned the social media giant’s Antigone Davis during an hour-long hearing on Capitol Hill over damning reports that Facebook’s own studios warned about the damage the Photo-Sharing Instagram app can do to teens’ well-being.
“This study is a bombshell. It is powerful, surprising and desirable evidence that Facebook knows the destructive effects it has on children and that it has concealed those facts and discoveries,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal.
Davis, interviewed through Blumenthal and other senators, said a Wall Street Journal series selectively chose parts of his studies to give an inaccurate and grim view of the company’s work.
She told lawmakers that a survey of teens on 12 serious problems such as anxiety, sadness and eating disorders showed instagram to be useful to them.
“Of 11 of the 12 disorders, teens who said they had disorders with those disorders were more likely to say Instagram helped them affirmatively, without making things worse,” said Davis, who gave her testimony from a distance.
Still, Blumenthal read aloud excerpts from corporate documents that he said were leaked to lawmakers through a Facebook whistleblower who contradicted him.
“There is substantial evidence to suggest that experiments on Instagram and Facebook compound physical dissatisfaction,” he said, adding that the conclusion is not a disgruntled employee’s complaint, but a study across the company.
A Facebook whistleblower is scheduled to testify before senators on Tuesday, but it has not been clarified without delay whether that user is also the source of the leaked documents.
The social media giant faced a developing backlash, adding Thursday’s audience, in the wake of the Journal’s reports, and halted paintings about a fiercely criticized plan to create an Instagram edition for young people under 13.
Facebook has argued that a specially designed platform would allow some parents in an online world already full of children, however, critics have called it a cynical strategy to hook more young users.
Lawmakers demanded Thursday that Facebook dedicate itself to publishing all of its studies and targeting young people under the age of 13.
“Miss Davis, do you think Facebook will launch any platform aimed at young people 12 and under that includes features. . . that allow young people to quantify popularity?” asked Senator Ed Markey.
Davis sidesteaned his request, calling the company’s products “enrich” life by allowing teens to join their friends and family.
He added that Facebook is looking for tactics for a higher percentage of its findings, however, “privacy considerations” had to be considered.
On Wednesday, the company published a heavily commented edition of two presentations on its own research, but the percentage they constitute of its internal studies is unclear.
The company has been under relentless pressure to become a platform where misinformation, hatred and content that harms children can be spread.
Lawmakers have struggled to pass new regulations that would update online protections in decades that evolved long before social media existed.