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A Senate hearing encouraged by a company whistleblower began Thursday with a flood of allegations against Facebook, the company now implicated in the burial of internal research describing its Instagram product as a plague on the mental health of adolescent users.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, head of the Senate consumer protection subcommittee, accused Facebook of lying to Senate officials and of selectively posting documents to mislead the public about the conclusions of the company’s own experts . “We now know that Facebook consistently puts profits ahead of children’s online safety. We know that she chooses the growth of her products before the well-being of our children. And we now know that it is indefensible to act to protect them, ”he said.
Uncovered by the Wall Street Journal this month, covertly commissioned research from Facebook into Instagram’s effects on young teens offered a disturbing view of the mental health risks associated with its photo-sharing platform. “Teens blame Instagram for the increased rates of anxiety and depression,” the Facebook researchers wrote in a paper, saying the reaction was both “spontaneous and consistent across all groups.”
The Journal further described Facebook’s efforts to bury its own findings, even as it hunted for new ways to seduce its brand with children in their pre-adolescence. Facebook has been told repeatedly about the damage Instagram has done, mostly to young girls, many of whom have linked suicidal thoughts and eating disorders to their experiences on the app. Yet documents show that in the face of these findings, Facebook has continued to characterize children as young as 10 as a “valuable” but “untapped” resource essential to the “growth” of the business.
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“We are here today because Facebook has shown us, once again, that it is incapable of holding itself accountable,” said Blumenthal, who spoke of a Facebook whistleblower approaching his office this month. here, offering “an in-depth look at Facebook’s relentless campaign to recruit and exploit young users.
The whistleblower is now scheduled to testify before the subcommittee on Tuesday and will appear over 60 minutes this Sunday.
On the eve of Thursday’s hearing, Facebook preventively published two reports aimed at downplaying the findings highlighted in the press. He went so far as to attack his own experts, calling their methods scientifically flawed, even bordering on incompetence. This referred to conclusions as “preliminary” and “exploratory”, as he has endeavored to emphasize the limits of his own work. Its researchers, for example, have not relied on any “clinical criteria” while repeatedly applying the term “mental health” – which society believes should not be misinterpreted as a “clinical, formal or clinical definition. academic”.
Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, criticized Facebook for the preemptive publication, describing it as hand-picked analysis. “We have these two reports among the documents provided by the whistleblower,” he said. “There are many other detailed and sophisticated reports that Facebook has not disclosed.”
“The point is,” he continued, “Facebook has hidden research, studies, experts that show the harm that has been done to children on its site, how it knew about this harm and how it hid it, continually. “
Blumenthal added that he and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a senior committee member and Republican from Tennessee, wrote to CEO Mark Zuckerberg in August, asking if Facebook had ever heard of negative effects, such as suicidal thoughts, on people. children and adolescents. Mental Health. Facebook’s response, he said, was that it was “unaware of a consensus among studies or experts on too long screen time.”
“This answer,” he said, “was just plain wrong.”
Blumenthal revealed that her office conducted its own experiment, creating a fake Instagram account that claimed to be a 13-year-old girl. The account was created to follow others who were “easy to find” and associated with “extreme diets”. Instagram, in one day, recommended the “13-year-old” to follow a multitude of other accounts promoting “self-harm and eating disorders,” he said.
A notice board displayed during the hearing showed a range of accounts Instagram had recommended to follow. Most names are blacked out, but a few display bios hinting at the type of content they contain. One reads, for example, “Thinner By The Day,” while another is labeled “anorexia subtype B / P,” a reference to the compulsive “hunger and purge” behavior clinically associated with bulimia. Another account is labeled “EDTW”, an abbreviation intended to warn users that its content focuses on eating disorders.
“Facebook took the Big Tobacco playbook,” Blumenthal said. “He hid his own research on drug addiction and the toxic effects of his products, he tried to deceive the public and us in Congress about what he knows, and he armed the vulnerabilities of childhood against them. -same. “
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