Facebook Plans to Highlight Its Positive Research on Instagram and Teens

Facebook, beneath criticism over inside information exhibiting its Instagram app broken the psychological well being of youngsters, plans to focus on throughout a US Senate listening to on Thursday what it argues have been extra constructive impacts, in response to the corporate’s ready testimony seen by Reuters.

Antigone Davis, international head of security at Facebook, will element the corporate’s beforehand introduced efforts to raised defend kids and youths on-line, together with defaulting customers beneath the age of 16 to non-public accounts after they be part of Instagram, in response to the testimony.

“Our research showed that many teens who are struggling say that Instagram helps them deal with many of the hard issues that are so common to being a teen,” Davis’s written testimony says.

Facebook has been beneath hearth for the previous week after the Wall Street Journal reported inside paperwork confirmed that the social media firm was conscious that Instagram harmed the psychological well being of younger customers.

Ahead of the listening to, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn mentioned in a press release that “Facebook knows that its services are actively harming their young users” and cited Facebook’s in-house analysts who “performed a series of deep dives into teen use of Instagram that revealed, ‘aspects of Instagram exacerbate each other to create a perfect storm.'”

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal known as the listening to “Protecting Kids Online” following the Wall Street Journal’s reporting.

Internal Facebook research shows that among teenage girls who said they had recently felt sadness, 57 percent said Instagram made things better, Davis’ prepared remarks show.

Among teenage girls who felt loneliness, 51 percent said Instagram had a positive impact, according to the testimony.

In a separate hearing on Tuesday, a Facebook whistleblower will testify about the company and how it handles children’s safety online at a Senate hearing featuring Blumenthal and Blackburn. The senators did not disclose any information about the whistleblower.

© Thomson Reuters 2021