WhatsApp’s effects In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. A group of influential academics say the company should allow for better research into how its social media platforms affect young users.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp – formerly known as Facebook – should make available for independent review all past and current research into children and teens’ use of its online products. Says the letter written by 15 academics and signed by more than 300 others.
The company should also contribute to ongoing and future research into child and adolescent health. As well as establish an oversight body to assess mental health issues and the implications of the company’s networks, the letter said.
Meta is still battling criticism generat after whistleblower Frances Haugen published internal company studies on Instagram’s harms to teens, particularly young girls.
The global coalition of academics claims in its letter that Meta’s studies on youth mental health fall short of the science. “The fact that you are conducting the research reveal in recent news articles clearly shows that you agree that such effects are a real possibility,” the letter reads.
“In principle, we applaud Meta’s attempts to understand how its platforms may impact young people’s mental health. However, the work is not only methodologically questionable. It is also being conducted in secret,” said Andrew Przybylski, a research director at the Oxford Internet Institute, which organized the initiative. “That is why such studies are flawe and, in their current state, doom to failure.”
Meta did not immediately respond to US TODAY’s request for comment on the letter.
The letter comes days before a Senate Commerce Colombia WhatsApp Number List subcommittee hearing scheduled for Wednesday on Instagram’s impact on young users. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri is expected to testify. “Instagram’s repeated failures to protect children’s privacy have already been exposed before the United States Senate,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a statement ahead of this week’s hearing.
Blackburn, the top Republican on the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection
Product Safety and Data Security, has join the top Democrat, Sen. Richard Blumenthal. In several hearings on social media and its potential harms. “Now is the time to act,” she said. “I look forward to discussing concrete solutions to improve the safety and security of our children’s and grandchildren’s data.”
In September, Mosseri said the company would delay plans to launch a kids’ version of Instagram. This came shortly after a report in the Wall Street Journal that company officials knew Instagram could have a negative impact. Particularly on the mental health and body image of young girls.
Haugen, a former project manager at Facebook. Later reveal WhatsApp Number Database that she had leak internal documents to the Wall Street Journal. She has since testifi before Congress and the British Parliament. “The choices that are being made inside Facebook are disastrous for our children or our public safety for privacy and for our democracy. And that’s why we have to demand change at Facebook,” Haugen told senators.
Zuckerberg said accusations that the company prioritize “profit over safety and well-being” are “simply not true.”
Two weeks ago, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general said it would investigate Meta and Instagram for allegedly ignoring its own internal research into the platform’s effects on young users.
A Meta spokesperson call the accusations “false” and said they demonstrate “a profound misunderstanding of the facts.”
Regardless, it’s important to know how social media Bulk Database can lead to depression. Anxiety and other problems in children, teens and young adults, said Candice Odgers. A professor of psychological sciences at the University of California. Irvine, and one of the letter’s authors.
If Meta truly wants to know “whether its platform is harming teen mental health. Then the same standards of care. Rigor and transparency that we demand in mental health research must be upheld by these companies,” she said.
“In this open letter, we outline a path forward for scientists. Industry leaders and young people themselves to ensure that open science practices and partnerships can provide real . Answers to the question of whether and how our children are being impact by digital technologies,” Odgers said.
