Facebook official defends platform’s policies for young users amid criticism over inaction on research

Antigone Davis, head of global safety in Facebook, said that “safe and age appropriate” experiences for teenage users have been implemented by the company.

Amid the ongoing criticism about Facebook’s handling of its internal research team’s findings, an executive from the company defended it in front of the US Congress and said that the company is working towards the protection of young users of its platforms, according to several news reports.

Facebook's global head of safety Antigone Davis testifies virtually before the US Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security. (AP)

Antigone Davis, head of global safety in Facebook, said that “safe and age appropriate” experiences for teenage users have been implemented by the company. “We have put in place multiple protections to create safe and age-appropriate experiences for people between the ages of 13 and 17,” the Associated Press (AP) reported quoting a written testimony by Davis to a US Senate Commerce Subcommittee.

Further, the company also has disputed a recent news report by the Wall Street Journal which claimed that Facebook has failed to fix the “ill effects” of the platform which its researchers have identified. Also, the report said that Facebook has played down such negative effects of its photo and video sharing platform Instagram on young users. The report also cited a slide from one of Facebook’s internal presentations which said, “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.”

However, Facebook has already responded to the report and has denied it. “It is simply not accurate that this research demonstrates Instagram is “toxic” for teen girls. The research actually demonstrated that many teens we heard from feel that using Instagram helps them when they are struggling with the kinds of hard moments and issues teenagers have always faced,” a statement from Facebook’s head of research Pratiti Raychoudhury said.

Meanwhile, Davis told the US Senate that the company conducts such research to proactively identify areas of improvement for the platform. “We conduct this research, to make our platform better, to minimise the bad and maximise the good and to proactively identify where we can improve,” the BBC quoted her as saying.

“We want our platforms to be a place for meaningful interactions with friends and family and we cannot achieve that goal if people do not feel safe,” she further said.

However, Richard Blumenthal, US Senator from the Democratic Party, said that the company chose the growth of its product over the well-being of its users, the BBC report showed. Also he said that Facebook was not holding itself accountable and questioned how the platform could be trusted.

Among the major impacts following the criticism due to the WSJ report, the company had earlier in the week announced that it is pausing its plan to develop a version of Instagram, popularly known as Instagram Kids, for children under the age of 13.