Facebook’s Antigone Smith, the global head of safety, was grilled on Thursday at a Senate subcommittee hearing about Instagram’s impact on teens’ mental health.
U.S. lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle agree on virtually nothing these days. The exception is when the topic is Facebook. Republicans and Democrats grilled Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, on Thursday, in a hearing before the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection. Antigone, who testified by video, was called to answer questions about Instagram’s impact on the mental health of teens and Facebook’s efforts to build more products targeting children. The hearing, titled “Protecting Kids Online: Facebook, Instagram, and Mental Health Harms,” follows a series of Wall Street Journal reports earlier this month that were based on internal studies conducted by Facebook researchers. Those stories revealed that Facebook is aware of the harmful effects of Instagram on the mental health of young users. In particular, Facebook’s own studies showed that 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced their desire to commit suicide back to Instagram. Davis answered questions for close to three hours, and listened as multiple senators compared Facebook to the tobacco industry, which for years knowingly hid what it knew about the dangers associated with the products it was selling. “Facebook is just like Big Tobacco, pushing a product that they know is harmful to the health of young people, pushing it to them early, all so Facebook can make money,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chair of the subcommittee, kicked off the hearing by accusing Facebook of showing that it’s incapable of holding itself accountable. Blumenthal said the Journal stories and the Facebook whistleblower who provided the documents gave “deep insight into Facebook’s relentless campaign to recruit and exploit young users.” “We now know that while Facebook publicly denies that Instagram is deeply harmful for teens, privately Facebook researchers and experts have been ringing the alarm for years,” Blumenthal said. “We now know that Facebook routinely puts profits ahead of kids’ online safety, we know it chooses the growth of its products over the wellbeing of our children, and we now know that it is indefensibly delinquent in acting to protect them.” Blumenthal also noted that Facebook’s documents proved the company had been untruthful in prior correspondence with members of the Senate.
