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During a hearing on Thursday, Senators questioned a Facebook executive, claiming the company had evidence its products harmed teens, yet repeatedly concealed that information from lawmakers and the public.
Facebook’s Head of Global Safety, Antigone Davis, faced questions in an hours-long Capitol Hill hearing that called over damning reports that Facebook’s own research warned of the harm photo-sharing app Instagram can do to teenage girls’ well-being.
“This research is a bombshell. It is powerful, gripping, riveting evidence that Facebook knows of the harmful effects of its site on children, and that it has concealed those facts and findings,” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), chair of the consumer protection subcommittee.
“In truth, Facebook has taken Big Tobacco’s playbook. It has hidden its own research on addiction and the toxic effects of its products. It has attempted to deceive the public and us in Congress about what it knows and it has weaponized childhood vulnerabilities against children themselves,” Blumenthal charged.
Under questioning from Blumenthal and other senators, repeatedly said a Wall Street Journal series had selectively chosen parts of its studies to give an inaccurately dark vision of the company’s work.
She told lawmakers that a survey of teens on 12 serious issues like anxiety, sadness and eating disorders, showed that Instagram was generally helpful to them.
“On 11 of the 12 issues, teen girls who said they struggled with those issues were more likely to say that Instagram was affirmatively helping them, not making it worse,” said Davis, who delivered her testimony remotely.
Yet, Blumenthal read aloud excerpts from company documents he said were leaked to lawmakers by a Facebook whistleblower that directly contradicted her.
“Substantial evidence suggests that experiences on Instagram and Facebook make body dissatisfaction worse,” he said, adding the finding was not a disgruntled worker’s complaint but company research.
At the hearing, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey announced that he would reintroduce legislation with Senator Blumenthal called the KIDS (Kids Internet Design and Safety) Act, which seeks to create new protections for online users under 16.
The bill would prohibit platforms directed at children from leveraging follower and like counts, push alerts that encourage users to use the app more, auto-play settings, badges that award elevated levels of engagement, or any design feature that unfairly encourages a user (“due to their age or inexperience,” the bill specifies) to make purchases, submit content, or spend more time on a platform.
