Blumenthal Calls on Zuckerberg to Testify at Hearing on Instagram's Impact on Kids
“It is urgent and necessary for you or Mr. Adam Mosseri to testify to set the record straight and provide members of Congress and parents with a plan on how you are going to protect our kids.”
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chair of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the subcommittee about Instagram’s impacts on children’s mental health and wellbeing.
“Parents across America are deeply disturbed by ongoing reports that Facebook knows that Instagram can cause destructive and lasting harms to many teens and children, especially to their mental health and wellbeing,” wrote Blumenthal. “Those parents, and the twenty million teens that use your app, have a right to know the truth about the safety of Instagram.”
The request comes after reporting in the Wall Street Journal on Facebook’s knowledge of its platforms’ negative impact on teenagers and young users and after hearings Blumenthal chaired with Facebook Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. “These revelations all paint a picture of a powerful corporation that has failed to act to protect teens because it prioritized its financial bottom line over safety,” emphasized Blumenthal.
Blumenthal called out Facebook’s lack of transparency and apparent concealment of information about its platforms’ impacts on teen mental health and addiction in its responses to an August letter and in Davis’ subcommittee testimony in September, and the company’s actions since then, including its most recent characterization of reporting as an “orchestrated ‘gotcha’ campaign,” emphasizing: “Rather than casting baseless aspirations on whistleblowers and journalists, Facebook should be vigorously acting to provide parents with firm commitments for dramatic reforms and direct answers. Sadly, it is not.”
Blumenthal slammed Davis’ apparent false or inaccurate testimony regarding Facebook’s internal research, writing: “in response to direct questions about whether Facebook has locked down or shut out access to documents, Ms. Davis stated “it's not my understanding that we've done that” and committed to following up with my office about any changes in that understanding. However, last week, several media outlets reported that has locked down documents from the Facebook Integrity team. These are the actions of a company attempting to resist scrutiny, not embrace transparency.”
The full text of the letter is available here.
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