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Facebook Government Social Networks The Internet United States

Congress Will Investigate Claims That Instagram Harms Teens (theverge.com) 50

Posted by BeauHD from the that-didn't-take-long dept.
Two top lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee's panel over consumer protection said they were launching a probe into Facebook after The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the company was aware of the harm Instagram can cause to teenage girls. The Verge reports: Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced their investigation into Facebook in a statement released Tuesday. The senators said that they were in touch with "a Facebook whistleblower" and would seek new documents and witness testimony from the company related to the reporting. "It is clear that Facebook is incapable of holding itself accountable. The Wall Street Journal's reporting reveals Facebook's leadership to be focused on a growth-at-all-costs mindset that valued profits over the health and lives of children and teens," the lawmakers said. "When given the opportunity to come clean to us about their knowledge of Instagram's impact on young users, Facebook provided evasive answers that were misleading and covered up clear evidence of significant harm."

House lawmakers also criticized Facebook over the Journal's new reporting, and Republicans even issued a new amendment to the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation seeking to address tech's effects on teens. Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) introduced the measure that would direct the Federal Trade Commission to go after "unfair and deceptive acts or practices targeting our children's mental health and privacy by social media." The amendment failed. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee, said in a tweet, "Big Tech has become the new Big Tobacco. Facebook is lying about how their product harms teens." A group of Democrats, including Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), and Lori Trahan (D-MA), penned a letter to Facebook Wednesday calling on the company to abandon its plans to launch an Instagram app for kids in light of the report.
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Congress Will Investigate Claims That Instagram Harms Teens More

Congress Will Investigate Claims That Instagram Harms Teens

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  • As bad a cigarettes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JDAustin ( 468180 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @05:12PM (#61799773)

    Instagram is as harmful to teenage girls mental state as cigarettes is to there physical state.

    • Instagram is as harmful to teenage girls mental state as cigarettes is to there physical state.

      Oof. I prescribe Sativa.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      Congress, we need to make it look like we're doing something.
      Switch them from cigarettes to vaping and from instagram to tiktok. If anyone has objections tell them Trump doesn't like tiktok.. they'll love it.

      • Congress, we need to make it look like we're doing something. ...

        and the workplace and schools. the altars when people can't make it all the way to the capital.

      • Congress, we need to make it look like we're doing something.

        Congressional logic:
        1. Something must be done.
        2. This is something.
        3. Therefore, it must be done.

    • Re:As bad a cigarettes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ravenshrike ( 808508 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @05:58PM (#61799933)

      All social media harms teens. Much more so teen girls because the female social dynamic is in aggregate more wrapped up in how others see them but it's not particularly healthy for boys either.

      • Not just social media, all media. And all social interactions, not just online. Because they're hormone addled teenagers.

        • The difference is that the feedback loops are limited in both time and place with non-social media and in person social interaction. With internet enabled phones, social media is available 24/7.

          • As well as the information given. In person you get facial expression, posture etc as feedback that helps you develop in-person social skills. You get none of that with social media.

    • Re:As bad a cigarettes (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @06:13PM (#61799969)

      harmful to teenage girls

      The most harmful thing to teenage girls . . . is . . . other teenage girls.

      Now let's see how Congress manages to regulate teenage girls.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 )

        ... is . . . other teenage girls.

        A bit like "Guns don't kill people." True but a fuck-the-world type with an semi-automatic rifle and large-capacity magazine can kill a lot faster than someone with a bolt-action. It's difficult to draw a line between your freedom and protecting everyone else from Your choices, Eg. drug-use. Other times, bad behaviour (IE. internet fuck-wad) becomes institutionalized and freedoms (IE. right to speech, right to distribute) need to be curtailed. (NB. Texas is trying to pass a law that forces distributi

        • True but a fuck-the-world type with an semi-automatic rifle and large-capacity magazine can kill a lot faster than someone with a bolt-action.

          Ummm..no. As far back as WW1, the British soldiers (as an example) were noted for the speed they could fire their bolt-action Lee-Enfields. A matter of training and practice. And the training is dead-simple if you have the time for the practice.

          I know this because I read it in a history of WW1, and then took my Lee-Enfield out to a range and tried it. Yeah, it wo

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dimko ( 1166489 )
          "A bit like "Guns don't kill people." True but a fuck-the-world type with an semi-automatic rifle and large-capacity magazine can kill a lot faster than someone with a bolt-action." This is very wrong statement. First thing that any oppressive regimes do - they take away guns. But I digress. Populous with guns - populous that has chance for overthrow tyrants. Guns in society is anti tyrant tax if you like. A few hundreds dead a year for multi million country is small price to pay compared to alternative

      • Re:As bad a cigarettes (Score:4, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday September 16, 2021 @06:38AM (#61800819) Homepage Journal

        Not really. Bullying is a problem but far worse is the amount of fake imagery that girls are bombarded with, setting up ideals for how they should look and behave that are both harmful and unrealistic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        You joke but getting at the real heart of the matter. Kids are supposed to be raised by adults. They are supposed to model adults but they are fundamentally most interested in other kids most of the time. (Kids includes adolescents) This is the fundamental problem with our educational system. We shove children into a building where they are surrounded primarily by other children. The only adult interactions they have are in strictly defined roles like student - teacher. There is no real dynamic/natural adu

      • I know you were being a little bit glib, but regulation is not about perfection.

        In these kinds of cases, it about removing the things that make things worse.

        Let's take something like guns. Can a society be mature and have pretty liberal gun ownership? Of course it is. Switzerland, Finland... show that a society can own guns and does not destroy itself.

        But if you have a society that is not mature, emotionally stable, prosperous enough... then you have to think of what the introduction of certain things does

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dimko ( 1166489 )
          "Guns thrown in the mix of a poor inner city neighborhood will make a bad situation worse. " - no they will not. Evolution will take care of such places once guns are introduced. Any neighborhood that is sustained through government handouts should not exist in the first place. "now they can go buy a gun and slaughter dozens." - now they can still keys from trash collector or buy knives in local store and kill dozens with said appliances. Or buy guns from shady dealer in places where such sales are illegal

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        harmful to teenage girls

        The most harmful thing to teenage girls . . . is . . . other teenage girls.

        Now let's see how Congress manages to regulate teenage girls.

        This.

        Instagram is the medium. Bullying is the message and it's been going on far longer than the Internet or even radio has existed. Take Instagram offline and the bullying will just find another outlet, if anything it'll drive the problem further underground, out of sight and in all likelihood make the problem worse.

        As a side note, let me state that boy on boy bullying can get quite ugly... but girl on girl bullying is fucking brutal.

        However any solution on bullying requires admitting that America

  • Once they're done with Instagram maybe they can finally get around the banning mortal Kombat and night trap. I mean it's not like Congress has anything better to do, say for example distribute the 46 billion dollars in aid intended to prevent Mass evictions...

    • I mean it's not like Congress has anything better to do, say for example distribute the 46 billion dollars in aid intended to prevent Mass evictions...

      Or pass the $3.5T Build Back Better plan so we can finally get UBI and tax the rich.

      Or raise the debt ceiling before the Sept. 30 funding deadline.

      We have control of the house, senate, and presidency -- this should've been easy.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by godel_56 ( 1287256 )
        Democrats don't control the Senate while DINOs Manchin and Sinema are voting with the Republicans on almost every important bill.
    • Ban, don't ban, whateverthe,.. The open social media model is what's broken. Or is it the general human social model? People in general cannot "govern", "moderate", "collaborate",... Without a model to tell them exactly what and how to do it. Then a laminated warning on the wall to remind them what will happen if they do not. To stay with the topic for which I am responding, EA can give that Tiberium Alliances a look, a good long look....

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @10:06PM (#61800313)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Here's a fix (Score:3)

    by John.Banister ( 1291556 ) * on Thursday September 16, 2021 @12:34AM (#61800467) Homepage
    Use the facial recognition algorithms for cameras. If the photo has a face, don't allow teens to upload it to Instagram, and don't allow Instagram accounts held by teens to display it. Sure, there'll be workarounds. But, the workarounds will be educational regarding online fakery, and teens will go elsewhere for the kind of photo sharing they commit suicide over.

  • Porn isn't very good for kids either, just saying.

  • Now, I don't, under any circumstances, want to give anyone the impression that I'm defending Facebook. They're a shit company doing shit things to the entire world and anybody paying attention knows that.

    That said, Facebook's focus on growth and profit above all else isn't unique to them. Why, when we ask other companies to consider the environment, the people they harm, or anything other than growth and profit do huge swaths of the same people that hate Facebook start screaming in our faces that a compan

  • Women's magazines like Cosmopolitan and Vogue "make body image issue worse for one in three teen girls"
    Television and movie representations of perfect women "make body image issue worse for one in three teen girls".
    Classical paintings portraying beautiful women "make body image issue worse for one in three teen girls"

    Are we going to ban all of these? Not likely.

    It seems that at some point personal and parental responsibility must play a role in the lives of teenage girls.

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