On Tuesday, Senators are set to receive testimony from a former Facebook employee who accuses the company of neglecting reports of harassment and harm experienced by teenagers on its platform. The employee worked at Facebook from 2009 to 2015 and later returned in 2019 as a consultant for Instagram's well-being team.
Testifying Against Former Company
Former Facebook employee Arturo Bejar is going public with accusations that the company neglected to act upon its own research indicating that young Instagram users were encountering harmful experiences on the platform. Engadget reported that Bejar is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 7.
He revealed his efforts to internally address safety concerns on Instagram, citing research findings that over 20 percent of users under 16 felt worse about themselves after viewing others' posts, and 13 percent experienced unwanted sexual advances in the past week.
Bejar's revelations emerged in the wake of former Facebook employee Frances Huagen's disclosure of internal research on Instagram's adverse effects on teen mental health two years ago, which led to a pause in Instagram's kid-focused app development and investigations by numerous states into Facebook.
Ignoring Harmful Effects
Recently, 41 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that it employed harmful and psychologically manipulative product features detrimental to the mental health of young users. Bejar collaborated with state officials regarding their case and is now poised to share his experiences before Congress.
According to Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal, Bejar's disclosures reveal that Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, and other Meta executives were personally informed of the millions of teens encountering issues such as bullying, eating disorder content, illicit drugs, and sexual exploitation on Instagram, often within minutes of using the app.
Instead of addressing these severe concerns, Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook concealed the information from the public and Congress, disregarded recommendations to safeguard teens, revoked safety measures, and disbanded teams responsible for children's safety.
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Throughout his two-year tenure, Bejar and his team developed a questionnaire designed to assess the user experience on the platform. The Hill reported that this questionnaire eventually led to a comprehensive report that Bejar forwarded to top Meta executives.
Referred to as the BEEF questionnaire, which stands for "Bad Emotional Experience Feedback," the survey revealed that users were 100 times more likely to report witnessing instances of bullying within the past week than Meta's official bullying-prevention statistics had indicated.
Furthermore, the survey highlighted that "bad experiences" were notably prevalent among teenage users on Instagram. For instance, the report revealed that 26 percent of users under the age of 16 could recall experiencing negative encounters in the previous week, primarily linked to witnessing hostility directed at someone based on their race, religion, or identity.
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