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The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, will come to testify next December 6 before a Senate subcommittee on the negative impact that the platform has among users, especially among the youngest.
The Democratic senator for Connecticut and chairman of the Senate consumer protection subcommittee, Richard Blumenthal, explained in a statement that Mosseri has agreed to testify voluntarily.
Blumenthal, moreover, said he harbored hopes that the Instagram chief will support “specific legislative reforms and solutions.”
In September, The Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of articles based on internal company reports leaked to the press by a former employee indicating that Meta (then known as Facebook and which owns Instagram) prioritizes profits over the safety and well-being of users.
Among other things, the documents determine that Instagram is harmful to a portion of its younger users and that it is particularly “toxic” for teenage girls, as it “exacerbates” the problems that one in three girls have of their body image.
“Following the shocking revelations about the toxic effects of Instagram, we want the company management to explain to us how it uses its powerful algorithms to promote child-poisonous content that leads them to the darkest places,” Blumenthal said.
The negative effects of the popular photo platform on the mental health of teenage girls were determined by studies and surveys conducted by the app itself.
Among the young American girls surveyed who said they had contemplated suicide, 6% said that one of the reasons that had led them to do so was Instagram, a percentage that rose to 13% in the case of British teenagers.
