Mark Zuckerberg denies claims that Facebook puts profits before people - BBC News

mark zuckerberg has defended facebook from accusations that it puts profits before user safety after a former employee turned whistleblower gave damning testimony to a u.s senate committee francis halgen who leaked internal company research to the wall street journal says facebook should face regulation the social media giant says it's spending millions on improving safety james clayton reports oh it's raining eleanor and freya are both 14 and like many teenagers they're both on instagram as a teenager you're looking at these people like all these models and you know influencers they all are very very skinny and they have like a perfect body and when you're looking at at that and then kind of comparing yourself to it it's like very i think it could be really damaging when you're like feeling at your worst and then you go on instagram and you see things that are like targeted at you because you've looked at these kinds of things before you see them like model yeah like models influencers celebrities things like that and you're just like oh well i'll never be like that eleanor and freya's concerns are in fact shared by one rather important company facebook which owns instagram in fact leaked internal research found that teens who struggle with mental health say that instagram makes it worse the woman who leaked that report is called francis haugen and she gave evidence in washington the documents i have provided to congress prove that facebook has repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals about the safety of children she also said that facebook's motives were driven by money rather than the mental health of its users i saw facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety facebook consistently resolved these conflicts in favor of its own profits here in silicon valley facebook has pushed back saying that some of the research presented is misleading and despite the fact that instagram concluded that it could be damaging for children's mental health it also says that it can have a positive impact reacting to halgen's evidence was facebook's president of content policy monika bickett and again any time a single teen is having a bad experience that's too much one thing that shows that we are prioritizing safety above profit is the very fact that we're asking these hard questions facebook has said it's postponed a controversial project to create instagram for kids but we now know that very important politicians in washington believe the company has put profit over the mental health of teenage girls james clayson bbc news san francisco

Channel: BBC News

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Id: Q-Ooyi-7tr8

Length: 2min 41sec (161 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021