Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he once again hopes that revelations about the harms of social media will put pressure on Congress to protect young users and hold major tech companies accountable.
Blumenthal led a hearing on Tuesday featuring Meta whistleblower Arturo Béjar, whose testimony detailed his warnings to executives that went ignored and his own teenage daughter’s experiences on Instagram with online harassment. At the parent company, he worked as an engineering director for Facebook for six years and returned as a consultant to work on Instagram’s well-being team up until 2021.
Béjar’s testimony comes two years after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen argued before Congress that Facebook and Instagram put profits over safeguards for minors. Her insight into how these platforms hurt children’s mental health spurred various federal proposals, including Blumenthal’s Kids Online Safety Act.
After learning that the company was not taking his concerns seriously, Béjar argued that parents and children cannot trust social media sites like Facebook and that Congress needs to act. Blumenthal added that he hopes Béjar’s testimony will “enable us to get the Kids Online Safety Act across the finish line.”
“Big Tech is the next Big Tobacco,” Blumenthal said at the hearing as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. “The same kind of addictive product that Big Tobacco peddled to kids now is advanced to them and promoted and...
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