Democratic lawmakers are calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to abandon his plans to launch an “Instagram for Kids,” citing an internal company investigation that says the platform has inflamed mental health issues, including ideation suicide, among its adolescent users; especially young girls.
The demand comes as top lawmakers on the Senate Trade Committee announced plans to investigate the company with the help of a “Facebook whistleblower”.
“Children and teens are especially vulnerable populations online, and these findings draw a clear and devastating picture of Instagram as an app that poses significant threats to the well-being of young people,” lawmakers said.
The letter is signed by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Representatives Kathy Castor and Lori Trahan of Florida and Massachusetts, respectively.
He Wall Street Journal revealed on Tuesday that Instagram researchers had studied the impact of the app for sharing photos on the lives of its millions of young users. The researchers concluded that a considerable percentage of teens believed the app was responsible for mental health issues related to their personal image.
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“We worsen body image problems for one in three teens,” the researchers wrote in a slideshow posted on Facebook’s internal message board and obtained by the Journal.
According to a slide, 32% of teenage girls said the app made them feel worse for their body. Of those who had experienced suicidal thoughts, “13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves on Instagram,” the newspaper reported, citing another presentation.
Twenty-two million teens in the United States use Instagram daily, according to the newspaper.
Facebook, which claims to welcome the collaboration with Congress, has refused to make the investigation available to lawmakers, saying its data is proprietary. Arriving for Gizmodo, a Facebook spokesman said the company would not comment on the letter.
Members of the Senate Commerce Committee said Facebook has proven incapable of taking responsibility, saying its “growth at all costs” approach places benefits above “the health and lives of children and adolescents.”
“When given the opportunity to learn about the impact of Instagram on young users, Facebook provided evasive responses that were misleading and obscured clear evidence of significant harm,” lawmakers said.
Markey, Castor and Trahan said Wednesday that documents that were previously secret underscore “Facebook’s responsibility to fundamentally change its approach to interacting with children and teens online.” The company could start doing so, they said, abandoning its plans to launch an Instagram app aimed directly at children.
“As the Internet — and specifically social media — grows more and more in the lives of children and teens, we are deeply concerned that your company continues to breach its obligation to protect young users and has not yet committed. to stop their plans to launch new platforms aimed at children and adolescents, ”the legislator’s letter to Zuckerberg said.
BuzzFeed News revealed in March that Facebook planned to build a version of Instagram aimed at children under 13. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, confirmed that the company was exploring the idea at the time.
Facebook painted the concept as a “solution” to the challenges of age verification across its platforms; a platform with stronger controls and transparency for parents. Critics say the trillion-dollar business is driven solely by profits and the desire to connect young children to their products at an earlier age so they can earn revenue as users down the road, just as YouTube Kids currently leads. young users at 13 years old. + platform.
Almost all of Facebook’s benefits come from ads targeted to users based on an analysis of their online habits.
The letter from lawmakers also asked specific questions about Zuckerberg, such as whether he had personally reviewed the investigation into psychological harm caused by Instagram. Zuckerberg was also asked to reveal his company’s future plans for addressing children and to reveal how long Facebook studied the impact of its products on teen mental health.
“In light of this new evidence, we strongly urge you to give up all efforts to launch new platforms for children or adolescents,” lawmakers said.
You can read the full letter from the Markey office below.