Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Instagram logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS FILE PHOTO
Facebook Inc, under criticism over internal data showing its damaged the mental health of teenagers, plans to highlight during a U.S. Senate hearing on Thursday what it argues were more positive impacts, according to the company’s prepared testimony seen by Reuters.
Antigone Davis, global head of safety at Facebook, will detail the company’s previously announced efforts to better protect children and teens online, including defaulting users under the age of 16 to private accounts when they join Instagram, according to the testimony.
“Our research showed that many teens who are struggling say that Instagram helps them deal with many of the hard issues that are so common to being a teen,” Davis’s written testimony says.
Facebook has been under fire for the past week after the Wall Street Journal reported internal documents showed that the social media company was aware that Instagram harmed the mental health of young users.
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Ahead of the hearing, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn said in a statement that “Facebook knows that its services are actively harming their young users” and cited Facebook’s in-house analysts who “performed a series of deep dives into teen use of Instagram that revealed, ‘aspects of Instagram exacerbate each other to create a perfect storm.’”
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal called the hearing “Protecting Kids Online” following the Wall Street Journal’s reporting.
