Congress has new ammunition against Big Tech, and the bipartisan sponsors of legislation to crack down on or break up Meta are using it to push passage of their Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
In a statement early Friday (November 3), Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), lead sponsors of KOSA, cited allegations from whistleblower Arturo Bejar, former director of engineering at Facebook (now Meta), the owner of Instagram, which came in a story in The Wall Street Journal. The senators said the allegations were backed with “irrefutable evidence” that top Meta executives, including executive chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “were personally warned that millions of teens face bullying, eating disorder material, illicit drugs and sexual exploitation, often within minutes of opening the [Instagram] app,” but instead of addressing those “deadly” harms, they “hid that information from the public and congressional oversight, ignored recommendations to protect teens, rolled back safety tools, and dismantled teams responsible for kids’ safety.”
Bejar's allegations came in a Journal story about the Instagram safety executive, who said his warnings that the short-form video site’s approach to protecting teens wasn't working fell on deaf ears.
Blumenthal and Blackburn are the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security Subcommittee.
Also Read: Blumenthal Says Facebook Weaponizes Childhood Suffering
Bejar's allegations come on top of those of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.
When Haugen testified to Congress a year ago, Blumenthal called it Facebook's "Big Tobacco" moment.
A former Facebook product manager and data scientist, Haugen took documents when she left the company that she said show its algorithms “amplify polarizing and hateful content” for the sake of profit — a motive partly responsible for “tearing societies apart” — and said the company had research showing that but obscured the fact that it is harmful.
Of Bejar’s latest revelations, Blumenthal and Blackburn said in a joint statement: “Facebook along with other tech giants have been fighting our legislation with armies of lobbyists, lawyers, and opposition campaigns, but the broad coalition of young people, parents and experts will win. It is time to say ‘enough is enough’ to Big Tech and pass the Kids Online Safety Act.”
Meta had not responded to a request for comment early Friday.
