Instagram chief to testify in US Congress on harm to youth from platform

ANI
25 Nov 2021, 23:49 GMT+10

Washington [US], November 25 (ANI/Sputnik): The CEO of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, will appear before the US Senate, the upper chamber of the Congress, in the second week of December for the first time and testify regarding reports on the negative influence of the social network on teenagers, the New York Times reported, citing the US senator who will lead the hearing.

"He's the top guy at Instagram, and the whole nation is asking about why Instagram and other tech platforms have created so much danger and damage by driving toxic content to children with these immensely powerful algorithms. The hearing will be critically significant in guiding us to develop laws that can have an impact on making platforms safer," the chairman of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection, Richard Blumenthal, said as quoted by the newspaper on Wednesday.

The senator added that he would ask Mosseri about how the app's algorithms can trap and keep children in the online space. Hundreds of parents and children have already testified with their own stories about personal feeds promoting unhealthy habits, self-harm, and extreme dieting. Blumenthal seeks to oblige Mosseri to make Instagram's recommendation decisions transparent and noted that Snap, TikTok, and YouTube officials had already committed to more transparent algorithms.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an investigation into the impact that Instagram has on adolescents, citing internal documents of parent company Meta. Studies conducted over the past three years confirm that Instagram might cause eating disorders, unhealthy body image, and depression in teenagers, especially girls. (ANI/Sputnik)

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