Facebook Documents Show How Toxic Instagram is for Teens, Wall Street Journal Reports
upstart writes:
Facebook documents show how toxic Instagram is for teens, Wall Street Journal reports:
The Journal report exacerbated at least one lawmaker's concerns over Facebook's exploration of a children's version of Instagram. Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., has made children's mental health concerns in connection with social media use a key priority and previously rebuked Facebook for considering such a product.
Following the Journal's report, Trahan called for Facebook to "immediately abandon plans for Instagram for Kids" and focus instead on protecting existing young users.
"Facebook's internal documents show that the company's failure to protect children on Instagram - especially young girls - is outright neglect, and it's been going on for years," Trahan said in a statement.
"Facebook has no business developing additional social media platforms explicitly designed for our children[* see below] when they can't be trusted to keep their current house in order."
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has also made children's mental health online a cornerstone of her platform. In a statement Tuesday, she said Facebook "refused to comply" with a request from Republicans on the committee in March asking for its internal research on its products' impact on kids' mental health. [...]
Read the full Wall Street Journal report. [Seems paywalled -- ed.]
[* Maybe the story's changed since submission, or there's some GeoIP trickery going on, but the story I now see is fairly different to the above, and contains this statement: "Facebook is also building a version of Instagram for kids under age 13." which explains the representatives concerns, above.]
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