Head of Instagram to testify before US Senate about effect on teenagers

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Instagram head Adam Mosseri will testify in front of a section of the US Senate for the first time. The hearing will take place in two weeks and will discuss the effect of Instagram on mainly younger users.

According to parent company Meta, Mosseri will mainly talk about the steps Instagram is taking to reduce the negative effect on teenagers, The New York Times writes. The chairman of the Senate committee calls the testimony ‘significant’ on the road to legislation ‘that should make platforms safer’. Mosseri has never testified before US lawmakers. The hearing is due in about two weeks, the week of December 6.

The negative effect Instagram has on teens came out through internal investigations that whistleblower Frances Haugen released this fall. Last week, eight US states announced investigations into the negative impact of the platform on teenagers.

The Senate Committee especially wants to hear how Instagram’s algorithm sends teenagers into harmful ‘rabbit holes’ by showing more of the same kind of harmful posts. The committee wants such algorithms to become more transparent in order to see how they try to minimize harmful effects.

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