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WASHINGTON — Instagram head Adam Mosseri will testify before a Senate panel Wednesday afternoon to protect the social media app from mounting bipartisan anger over the harm it has reported to young users.
It will be Mr. Mosseri’s first appearance before Congress. The top official of Meta, formerly known as Facebook and the parent company of Instagram, is to testify to lawmakers after an internal investigation leaked by an informant who said Instagram had a toxic effect on some teens.
Lawmakers are expected to investigate Mr Mosseri over research that showed one in three teenage girls said the practice had made them feel worse about their body image. It will likely also be questioned about the technology underlying the app and whether it sends young users down rabbit holes with more dangerous and harmful content. Republican and Democratic lawmakers say they will confront him about the safety of younger users, including the company’s efforts to keep underage users away from the site.
“Instagram’s repeated failures to protect children’s privacy have already been exposed before the US Senate,” said Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a leading Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection panel that hosted the hearing. “Now is the time to act. I look forward to discussing concrete solutions that will improve security and data security for our children and grandchildren.”
The trial starts at 14:30 What you need to know before the trial.
Who is Adam Mosseri?
Mr. Mosseri, 38, is a longtime Facebook executive and is seen as a close aide to the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. He joined the company as a designer in 2008 and gradually rose to manage News Feed, a central feature of the Facebook app.
He was appointed head of Instagram in October 2018, weeks after the sudden resignations of the app’s founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
Why focus on Instagram?
This is the Senate consumer protection subcommittee’s fifth hearing to protect children online, and TikTok and YouTube executives have already revealed. But Instagram became the focus of lawmakers after Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, leaked internal research that showed some disturbing findings about the toxic role Instagram plays in the lives of young users, particularly teenage girls.
Subcommittee chair and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal said his office received hundreds of phone calls and emails from parents about their negative experiences with Instagram. One parent talked about how her daughter’s interest in fitness on Instagram led the app to recommend accounts about extreme dieting, eating disorders, and self-harm.
Mr. Blumenthal focused on algorithms that enforce such recommendations.
“We want to hear directly from the company’s leadership why it’s using powerful algorithms that push toxic content to kids, through rabbit holes into dark places, and what it’s going to do to make its platform safer,” he said.
What does Congress want to achieve?
Lawmakers, including Mr. Blumenthal and Ms. Blackburn, have proposed stronger data privacy rules aimed at protecting children, greater enforcement of age restrictions and the ability for young users to delete information online.
How might Mr. Mosseri respond?
On Tuesday, Instagram announced new safety features for kids. Mr Mosseri appears to be focusing on these new tools, such as the “take a break” feature to limit time spent online. (TikTok has a similar functionality that occurs when users spend too much time in the app.)
Mr Mosseri is also expected to focus on more positive research showing that Instagram can help young users form relationships online and feel less lonely. And it will express support for some regulations, such as stronger child privacy rules.
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