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The CEO of Meta-owned Instagram, Adam Mosseri, is scheduled to testify before a Senate committee the week of December 6 as part of a series of hearings on kids’ online safety.
Mosseri’s presence followed hearings earlier this year with Antigone Davis, the global head of safety at Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, and Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistle-blower, according to The New York Times.
Haugen’s discoveries concerning Facebook and Instagram, notably those about the company’s research into its effects on some teenagers and young girls, have sparked outrage, congressional probes, and regulatory investigations.
Davis told Congress in September that the firm disagreed with the assumption that Instagram was damaging to minors, and that the leaked research lacked causal data, according to the article.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, issued a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Haugen’s hearing last month, accusing the business of “providing misleading or erroneous testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research,” according to the letter.
To clear the air, Blumenthal invited Zuckerberg or Mosseri to speak before the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection subcommittee.
“He’s the top guy at Instagram, and the whole nation is asking about why Instagram and other tech platforms have created so much danger and damage by driving toxic content to children with these immensely powerful algorithms,” said Blumenthal, who chairs the subcommittee.
“The hearing will be critically significant in guiding us to develop laws that can have an impact on making platforms safer,” Blumenthal added