The hearing before the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee is set for the week of December 6.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the panel’s chair, said in a statement, “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.” “I appreciate Mr. Mosseri’s willingness to attend the Subcommittee and hope that he would support specific legislative improvements and remedies, particularly in the Subcommittee’s enormously powerful algorithms,” he added.
On Wednesday, Mosseri posted a video on his Twitter account praising the platform’s efforts to improve online experiences for young people. He stated, referring to Congress, “These are big concerns, but we have common aims.” “We all want young people to stay safe when using the internet.”
The impact of social media on teenagers and children has become a key priority for Washington, despite the general clamor against Big Tech companies.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen’s documents on Meta — the newly established parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — have made the firm a particular target. Instagram made one-third of teen females feel bad about their bodies, according to a set of slides first shared with The Wall Street Journal.
A group of state attorneys general opened an investigation earlier this month into whether Meta broke consumer protection laws by advertising the social media platform to teenage users despite knowing that its use is linked to health problems.
Legislators have also requested that Snapchat and Youtube reveal any internal studies on their sites’ impact on young users.
