“Twitch”, “toxic”, “split”. Facebook’s Instagram problem is imploding. Facebook bought the photo-sharing app for $1 billion in 2012, and on Tuesday, a whistleblower debunked how Facebook designed toxic connections that push teens on Instagram to the edge.
The damn revelation was drawn from the 200-odd minutes of live testimony in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday. Recently leaked internal Facebook documents show that 13% of British users and 6% of American users trace their suicide wishes to Instagram. After the first confrontation with Facebook’s head of global security, US lawmakers turned to the whistleblower, Frances Haugen, a former employee of the social networking giant.
According to Haugen, Facebook is focused on getting young users hooked on Instagram as early as possible so that they will not go to TikTok or Snapchat in the end. “They understand the value of young users to Facebook’s long-term success,” she said on Tuesday. When Haugen testified before the Senate Business Consumer Protection Subcommittee, he proposed a wide range of new regulations to control Facebook and other platforms that rely on customer data to stimulate its growth engine. The most exciting moment was when Haugen talked about harm to teenagers (mostly girls) on Instagram.
Haugen said Facebook knows that children in their most vulnerable moments will be harmed by its system. She said that Facebook has discovered that around the age of 14, just before high school, children are most likely to fall into Instagram’s emotional roller coaster. Here are some important excerpts from Haugen’s testimony on Tuesday, especially related to young people on the platform: Problematic use: “I think any research on Facebook’s problematic use, the addictiveness of the product is crucial, and any research on Facebook’s lack of knowledge about the platform for parents Facebook expressed the view that today’s parents are not aware of the danger through Instagram Because they have not experienced these experiences themselves, they cannot guide their children in terms of basic safety.”
News Source : Telangana Today
