{"id":36706,"date":"2023-11-08T08:15:55","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T08:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/former-meta-employee-tells-senate-company-failed-to-protect-teens-safety"},"modified":"2023-11-08T08:32:11","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T08:32:11","slug":"former-meta-employee-tells-senate-company-failed-to-protect-teens-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/former-meta-employee-tells-senate-company-failed-to-protect-teens-safety","title":{"rendered":"Former Meta employee tells Senate company failed to protect teens\u2019 safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. <\/strong><\/span>A former Meta (META. O) employee is testifying before a U. S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday, alleging that the Facebook and Instagram parent company was aware of harassment and other harms facing teens on its platforms but failed to address them.<\/p>\n

The employee, Arturo Bejar, worked on well-being for Instagram from 2019 to 2021 and earlier was a director of engineering for Facebook\u2019s Protect and Care team from 2009 to 2015, he said.<\/p>\n

Bejar is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law at a hearing about social media and its impact on teen mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time that the public and parents understand the true level of harm posed by these \u2018products\u2019 and it\u2019s time that young users have the tools to report and suppress online abuse,\u201d he said in written remarks made available before the hearing.<\/p>\n

Bejar\u2019s testimony comes amid a bipartisan push in Congress to pass legislation that would require social media platforms to provide parents with tools to protect children online.<\/p>\n

The goal of his work at Meta was to influence the design of Facebook and Instagram in ways that would nudge users toward more positive behaviors and provide tools for young people to manage unpleasant experiences, Bejar said at the hearing.<\/p>\n

Meta said in a statement that it is committed to protecting young people online, pointing to its backing of the same user surveys Bejar cited in his testimony and its creation of tools like anonymous notifications of potentially hurtful content.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day countless people inside and outside of Meta are working on how to help keep young people safe online,\u201d the Meta statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of this work continues.
\nBejar told senators he met regularly with senior executives at the company, including Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, and considered them supportive of the work at the time. However, he concluded subsequently that the executives had decided \u201ctime and time again to not tackle this issue,\u201d he testified.<\/p>\n

In one 2021 email, Bejar flagged to Zuckerberg and other top executives internal data revealing that 51% of Instagram users had reported having a bad or harmful experience on the platform in the past seven days and that 24.4% of children aged 13-15 had reported receiving unwanted sexual advances.<\/p>\n

He also told them that his own 16-year-old daughter had been sent misogynistic comments and obscene photos, without adequate tools to report those experiences to the company.<\/p>\n

The existence of the email was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. In his testimony, Bejar recounted that in one meeting Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox was able to cite precise statistics on teen harms off the top of his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found it heartbreaking because it meant that they knew and that they were not acting on it,\u201d said Bejar.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mauritius<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. A former Meta (META. O) employee is testifying before a U. S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday, alleging that the Facebook and Instagram parent company was aware of harassment and other harms facing teens on its platforms but failed to address them. The employee, Arturo Bejar, worked on well-being for Instagram from 2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":36705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[233,245,1838,241],"class_list":["post-36706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mauritius","tag-instagram","tag-mauritius"],"yoast_head":"\nFormer Meta employee tells Senate company failed to protect teens\u2019 safety - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A former Meta (META. 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