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Instagram’s chief executive Adam Mosseri is expected to testify before Congress for the first time the week of Dec. 6, a spokesperson for Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., confirmed to CNBC.
“After bombshell reports about Instagram’s toxic impacts, we want to hear straight from the company’s leadership why it uses powerful algorithms that push poisonous content to children driving them down rabbit holes to dark places, and what it will do to make its platform safer,” Blumenthal, chair of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection, said in a statement. “I appreciate Mr. Mosseri voluntarily coming to the Subcommittee and hope that he will support specific legislative reforms and solutions, particularly in its immensely potent algorithms.” https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/24/instagram-chief-adam-mosseri-to-testify-before-congress.html
The news, first reported by The New York Times, comes after Instagram has faced heightened scrutiny after former Facebook employee Frances Haugen released thousands of pages of internal documents from parent company Facebook (which recently rebranded to Meta) to the Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission and several news outlets. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/technology/adam-mosseri-instagram-congress.html. Mosseri’s scheduled appearance is the latest fallout from Haugen’s leaked files, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Among the findings in the documents was that Instagram had conducted research on how its platform impacted the mental health of young users and found negative effects on a portion of that user base. For example, the research found that about a third of teen girl respondents said when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. It also found that among teens reporting suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the issue to Instagram. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739?mod=hp_lead_pos7.
While CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg has become accustomed to being hauled in front of U.S. lawmakers, this will be the first time Mosseri will testify to them under oath. A trusted lieutenant to Zuckerberg who was chosen to lead Instagram in 2018, Mosseri has become the photo-sharing app’s public face, hosting regular video announcements about new features and appearing on morning television shows.
READ MORE: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/11/24/instagram-adam-mosseri-testify-congress-child-safety/8754621002/