(MENAFN-AFP)
U. S. lawmakers on Thursday demanded commitments from Facebook to address developing considerations about the effect of its platforms on teens’ intellectual health, but a senior executive was confident they were safe.
Senators questioned the social media giant’s Antigone Davis in an hour-long hearing on Capitol Hill, following damning reports that Facebook’s own studies warned of the harm Instagram can do to teenage girls’ 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.
“Out of 11 of the 12 issues, teens who said they were suffering with those issues are more likely to say Instagram was helping them affirmatively, without making things worse,” she said.
Still, portions of the company’s own studies detailed in the Journal articles included lines like “We’re making frame symbol disorders worse for one in three teens. “
The social media giant faced a developing backlash, adding Thursday’s audience, in the wake of the 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.
On Thursday, lawmakers asked Facebook to post all of them and demanded promises that the company would abandon its plans for the Instagram for kids project.
Davis said the company favors tactics for a higher percentage of its findings, yet there are privacy issues to deal with.
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 harmful to children can be spread, while still being a forum where other people can express themselves freely.
Lawmakers have also struggled to pass new regulations that would update online protections in decades before social media existed.
MENAFN30092021000143011026ID1102896038
Keywords
Feedback
Category
Date