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Facebook has come under pressure from US senators to release all of its internal research into how its products affect users, after a series of revelations about the harm some its platforms cause to vulnerable groups including children.
Senators on the US commerce committee pressed Antigone Davis, the social media company’s head of global safety, about the research on Thursday, during a hearing examining protection for children and teenagers online.
In recent days the Wall Street Journal has published documents from a whistleblower showing Facebook has data on how its products can weigh on younger users’ mental health, such as by deepening teenage girls’ preoccupation with body image.
Facebook published two of those papers on Wednesday. But senators at the hearing on Thursday called for it to go further and publish all the studies it has on the potential harm its platforms can cause and the data underlying them.
Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic chair of the Senate’s consumer protection subcommittee, accused the company of hiding “powerful, gripping, riveting evidence” about the harm its platform causes to children.
He told Davis: “I ask you to commit that you will make full disclosure of all the thousands of pages of documents that the whistleblower has and more that can be made available.”
Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, said that by publishing only two documents the company had “cherry pick[ed] the part of the research that you think helps your spin right now”.
Davis refused to commit to publishing the full documents during the hearing, saying the company was “looking to find ways to release more of this research”, but adding there were “privacy concerns” with doing so.
She also denied accusations the company was putting profits ahead of children’s safety, saying: “At Facebook we take the privacy, safety and wellbeing of all those who use our services very seriously, especially our younger users.”
In a separate report, the Journal also said Facebook had been exploring ways to capture the pre-teen market as it struggled to retain young users amid competition from Snapchat and TikTok, citing internal company documents.
Facebook’s shares have fallen almost 10 per cent this month as it grapples with its biggest public relations crisis since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and fallout from Apple’s recent changes to its advertising-targeting policies.
Facebook has disputed the Journal’s presentation of its research, accusing the newspaper of “cherry-picking” facts. On Wednesday it suggested the findings were limited and, in one instance, described its own researchers’ language as “myopic”.
Davis told the committee: “One of the main presentations referenced by the Wall Street Journal included a survey of 12 issues — difficult and serious issues like loneliness, anxiety, sadness, and eating disorders . . . For 11 of the 12 issues, teen girls who were struggling were more likely to say that Instagram was affirmatively helping them, not making them worse. That was true for teen boys on 12 out of 12 issues.”
Facebook on Tuesday said it would pause the launch of Instagram Kids, a version of the app for children under the age of 13, to give it time to incorporate feedback from policymakers, parents and child-safety campaigners.
Facebook indicated it would eventually press ahead with the plans, arguing that a separate platform could offer extra parental controls and better protect children. Users are supposed to be at least 13 years old to join Instagram or Facebook.
According to the Journal, Facebook researchers asked whether there was “a way to leverage play dates to drive word of hand/growth among kids?” for a messaging app for children, according to one internal document. In another, it called preteens a “valuable but untapped audience”.
“The language we used to describe the research was not well-considered — and doesn’t reflect our approach,” Facebook said.
Pressure on the company is unlikely to relent soon. The whistleblower, who recently met several members of Congress, is set to reveal her identity on news programme 60 minutes on Sunday. She will also testify at another Senate hearing next week.