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HomeVideoWATCH: Sen. Blackburn says Instagram touts safety, but doesn't deliver

WATCH: Sen. Blackburn says Instagram touts safety, but doesn’t deliver

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., opened up a Senate subcommittee hearing regarding child safety on Instagram on Dec. 8. She noted that Facebook, now Meta Platforms, is promoting new safety measures for children, including defaulting accounts held by minors to private, but shared that her team created an account posing as a 15-year-old girl and it defaulted to public.

“While Instagram is touting all these safety measures, they aren’t even making sure that these safety measures are in effect,” she said. “This is a case of too little too late.”

Facebook executive Adam Mosseri is testifying in the hearing amid heightened scrutiny of social media companies including one of the world’s largest social media platforms — Facebook — and their reported decisions to prioritize growth over other concerns. Facebook is the owner of Instagram.

Former Facebook product manager turned whistleblower Frances Haugen has testified to U.S. and European lawmakers working on those measures in recent months, citing internal company research suggesting that peer pressure generated by Facebook-owned Instagram has led to mental health and body-image problems in young users.

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