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Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri will testify before a trial. Senate subcommittee Next week, two senators announced on Thursday that lawmakers are investigating the platform’s alleged dangers to children, about the impact his company has on children.
Connecticut Democrat Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn announced that Mr. Mosseri appeared before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee’s consumer protection, product safety and data security subcommittee for the first time. Ms. Blackburn cited the suicide risk of teenage girls and the issues fueling trafficking as topics she reviewed on Facebook.
The committee collected testimonies from Antigone Davis, formerly an executive at Instagram’s parent company Facebook, which has since been rebranded as Meta, and Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who has accused Facebook of harming children.
“Following the explosive news about Instagram’s toxic effects, we’d like to hear directly from the company’s leadership why the company is using powerful algorithms to push kids with toxic content out of rabbit holes and what it will do to make its platform safer.” Mr Blumenthal said in a statement. “I am grateful that Mr. Mosseri has voluntarily come to the area. subcommittee I hope it will support very strong algorithms, certain legal reforms and resolutions, and in particular.”
Instagram did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms Blackburn said the company’s “repeated failures to protect children’s privacy” had already emerged in the Senate and wanted to discuss solutions.
Ms Davis previously said that public discussion of Facebook’s internal research mischaracterized its findings about how the company’s products affect children.
But Mrs. Haugen, subcommittee He said Congress and government should act against Facebook in a manner similar to its response to the tobacco industry following revelations about the harms Big Tobacco said it was hiding.
While Democrats and Republicans initially praised Ms. Haugen and her criticisms of Facebook, some lawmakers were more skeptical of her criticism amid fears that addressing her concerns could lead to online censorship.
During a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee session on Wednesday, Washington Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers pressed Ms. Haugen about whether big tech companies should restrict Americans from speaking. Ms. Haugen refused to answer directly with a “yes” or “no” and instead said she supported reworking existing systems.
Most of the time Senate subcommittee‘s work focused on Facebook and Instagram, with senators making it clear that they have broader goals in their work. The subcommittee also gathered information from other tech executives, including Snapchat and TikTok, who first appeared before Congress earlier this year.
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