Regarding Facebook's Harmful Effects on Teenage Girls

Fortuna CA

Description

According to the Epoch Times, Facebook is being scolded by the Feds again, but nothing will change: Facebook Faces Senate Probe After Report Reveals Instagram’s Harmful Effects on Teenage Girls Lawmakers are taking action on Facebook after a recent report revealed that the social media company is aware that its Instagram platform can be harmful to young girls’ mental health. In a joint statement released Tuesday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said they are launching a bipartisan investigation into Facebook’s knowledge of the negative impact of the popular photo-sharing platform on teenage users. “It is clear that Facebook is incapable of holding itself accountable,” the senators said in the statement. “The Wall Street Journal’s reporting reveals Facebook’s leadership to be focused on a growth-at-all-costs mindset that valued profits over the health and lives of children and teens.” According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook has been keeping secret from the public its internal studies, which repeatedly found that Instagram users, particularly teenage girls, suffer from mental health and body image issues. One internal presentation slide obtained by the Journal said that Instagram “makes body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.” Another slide read that teens “blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression,” according to the Journal. There was also an internal study that examined whether there was a link between suicidal thoughts among teenagers and time spent on Instagram. The presentation slide reviewed by the Journal said that 13 percent of British and 6 percent of American users attribute their self-harming desire to Instagram usage. Blumenthal and Blackburn, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, said they are “in touch with a Facebook whistleblower” and will be using “every resource at our disposal to investigate what Facebook knew and when they knew it.” “The Wall Street Journal’s blockbuster reporting may only be the tip of the iceberg,” they said. Meanwhile, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Reps. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) on Wednesday renewed their demand that Facebook should abandon its plans to launch a version of Instagram that can be used by children under the age of 13. “As the internet—and social media specifically—becomes increasingly engrained in children and teens’ lives, we are deeply concerned that your company continues to fail in its obligation to protect young users and has yet to commit to halt its plans to launch new platforms targeting children and teens,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook has a record of dismissing mental health concerns from the public. In March, Zuckerberg told Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) at a congressional hearing that a study that connects social media to depression was “inconclusive.” Instagram’s head of public policy, Karina Newton, wrote in a statement that The Wall Street Journal story had “focused on a limited set of findings and casts them in a negative light.” “Issues like negative social comparison and anxiety exist in the world, so they’re going to exist on social media too,” Newton said. “That doesn’t change the fact that we take these findings seriously, and we set up a specific effort to respond to this research and change Instagram for the better.” Just a quick review: • 2014: Expressed concern in writing to Academy of the Redwoods administrators about use of Chromebooks and inability of parents to monitor use, refusal of school staff to explore ways to shut machines down automatically at bedtime, growing presence of Facebook amongst students - as a UNIX systems administrator, I had 30+ years of experience with managing exactly these sorts of technologies, but Academy of the Redwoods administrators were Not Interested. • 2015: Child hospitalized. Academy of the Redwoods eventually bends over backwards to hush up situation by graduating my child on schedule, with a scholarship or two, despite half a year's absence. • 2016: Child arrested at Academy of the Redwoods by HCSO for alleged suicide attempt. I and my wife are charged with child abuse (JV160250). Humboldt County CWS discovers that we have three other children and tries to kidnap them, too (JV160275). Judge Christopher Wilson finds me guilty of child abuse because I admit that I once described my child's room as a "pig sty". Evidence related to events which place my child in CWS custody (a belt) vanishes. Judge Christopher Wilson orders me not to discuss the missing belt. • 2017: This nonsense extends into 2017... • 2018:... and involves the Appeals Court, costing the county and the state thousands and thousands of dollars. • 2019: Probably the last time I had a civil conversation with my child. So, basically, Humboldt County's guardians, supervisors, managers, and administrators have known that Facebook is a problem for teenagers for OVER HALF A DECADE... during which time they have piteously mewed about how terrible it is that teenagers in Humboldt County all want to kill themselves... while they have patiently waited for someone else to do something about it, because, apparently, it was Someone Else's Problem... and relentlessly and falsely persecuted and prosecuted the very person who brought it to their attention. What leadership! Perhaps we should have titled this, Regarding Humboldt County's Harmful Effects on Teenage Girls. Food for thought.