[Senate Hearing 117-819]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                        S. Hrg. 117-819

     PROTECTING KIDS ONLINE: INSTAGRAM AND REFORMS FOR YOUNG USERS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                    SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION,
                     PRODUCT SAFETY, AND DATA SECURITY

                                 of the

                         COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
                      SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________


                            DECEMBER 8, 2021

                               __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
                             Transportation







                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
               


               


                Available online: http://www.govinfo.gov

                               ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

54-588 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024












       SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                   MARIA CANTWELL, Washington, Chair

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             ROGER WICKER, Mississippi, Ranking
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 ROY BLUNT, Missouri
EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts         TED CRUZ, Texas
GARY PETERS, Michigan                DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             JERRY MORAN, Kansas
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
JON TESTER, Montana                  MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              TODD YOUNG, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  MIKE LEE, Utah
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado          SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia                 Virginia
                                     RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                     CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming

                 Melissa Porter, Deputy Staff Director
       George Greenwell, Policy Coordinator and Security Manager
                 John Keast, Republican Staff Director
            Crystal Tully, Republican Deputy Staff Director
                      Steven Wall, General Counsel

                                 ------                                

         SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION, PRODUCT SAFETY, 
                           AND DATA SECURITY

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut,     MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee, 
    Chair                                Ranking
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 ROY BLUNT, Missouri
EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts         JERRY MORAN, Kansas
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             MIKE LEE, Utah
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            TODD YOUNG, Indiana








                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on December 8, 2021.................................     1
Statement of Senator Blumenthal..................................     1
Statement of Senator Blackburn...................................     4
Statement of Senator Klobuchar...................................    16
Statement of Senator Markey......................................    19
Statement of Senator Baldwin.....................................    21
Statement of Senator Thune.......................................    23
Statement of Senator Lujan.......................................    25
Statement of Senator Lee.........................................    27
Statement of Senator Sullivan....................................    30
Statement of Senator Young.......................................    32
Statement of Senator Lummis......................................    34
Statement of Senator Cantwell....................................    36
Statement of Senator Cruz........................................    39

                               Witnesses

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, Meta Platforms Inc..............     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     7

                                Appendix

Article entitled, ``Hiding in Plain Sight: Exposure of Adolescent 
  White Males in Appalachia to Harmful Content on Social Media'' 
  by Dr. Joel Beeson, Professor, Reed Collge of Media, West 
  Virginia University............................................    49
Response to written questions submitted to Adam Mosseri by:
    Hon. Maria Cantwell..........................................    55
    Hon. Richard Blumenthal......................................    71
    Hon. Amy Klobuchar...........................................    76








 
     PROTECTING KIDS ONLINE: INSTAGRAM AND REFORMS FOR YOUNG USERS

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021

                               U.S. Senate,
      Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product 
                         Safety, and Data Security,
        Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m., in 
room SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard 
Blumenthal, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Blumenthal [presiding], Cantwell, 
Klobuchar, Schatz, Markey, Baldwin, Lujan, Thune, Cruz, 
Sullivan, Blackburn, Young, Lee, and Lummis.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNETICUT

    Senator Blumenthal. [Technical problems.]--from social 
media to children and teens on social media. We really 
appreciate your being here, Mr. Mosseri. Your response to our 
invitation is very welcomed. I want to thank you and your team 
for your cooperation, and I want to thank the Ranking Member, 
Senator Blackburn, for being such a really close partner in 
this work, as well as our Chairwoman Maria Cantwell and our 
Ranking Member Roger Wicker for their support as well and all 
the members of our committee for being so engaged on this 
topic.
    As a note to start, I understand Mr. Mosseri has a hard 
stop at five, so I am going to be strict on the 5-minute time 
limit. I know everybody thinks of me as a very nice guy, but I 
am going to be ruthless, at least attempting to be ruthless as 
best any Senator can be with his colleagues.
    In this series of hearings we have heard some pretty 
powerful and compelling evidence about the dangers of big tech 
to children's health, well-being, and futures. Our Nation is in 
the midst of a teen mental health crisis. Social media didn't 
create it, but it certainly fanned the fuel and the flames, and 
it has fueled it. And if anybody has any doubts about the 
potential harmful effects of social media, the surgeon general 
yesterday issued a powerful report about the implications of 
social media, as well as video gaming and other technologies on 
teen mental health.
    And that is part of the reason we are here. The hearings 
have shown that social media, in particular big tech actually 
fans those flames with addictive products and sophisticated 
algorithms that can exploit and profit from children's 
insecurities and anxieties. And our mission now is to do 
something about it.
    We are here to do more than shake fists. We really are 
seeking solutions. And we welcome the voices and the vision of 
big tech itself in that effort. I believe that the time for 
self-policing and self-regulation is over. Some of the big tech 
companies have said, trust us. That seems to be what Instagram 
is saying in your testimony. But self-policing depends on 
trust.
    The trust is gone. What we need now is independent 
researchers, objective overseers not chosen by big tech but 
from outside, and strong, vigorous enforcement of standards 
that stop the destructive, toxic content that now too often is 
driven to kids and takes them down rabbit holes to dark places. 
The day before this hearing, Instagram announced a set of 
proposals. These simple time management and parental oversight 
tools should have, they could have, been announced years ago. 
They weren't.
    And in fact, these changes fall way short of what we need, 
in my view. Many of them are still in testing, months away. 
Rollouts will be done at some point in the future, we don't 
know exactly when, and unfortunately, these announced changes 
leave parents and kids with no transparency into the black box 
algorithms. The 600 pound gorillas in those black boxes that 
drive that destructive and addictive content to children and 
teens. No effective warning or notice to parents when their 
children are spiraling into eating disorders, bullying, or 
self-harm.
    Nothing more than the bare minimum controls for parents. 
And, of course, no real accountability to assure parents and 
kids that these safeguards will work. I am troubled with the 
lack of answers on Instagram Kids. Once again, this pause looks 
more like a public relations tactic brought on by our hearings, 
just as these announced changes seem to be brought on by these 
proceedings announced just hours before your testimony, and we 
need real serious review of those changes.
    The magnitude of these problems requires bold and broad 
solutions and accountability, which has been lacking so far. 
Facebook's own researchers have been warning management, 
including yourself, Mr. Mosseri for years, about Instagram's 
harmful impacts on teens' mental health and wellbeing, and the 
whistleblower who sat exactly where you are told us about those 
documents, about the research, the studies, which showed that 
Facebook knew, it did the research, had the studies, but it 
continued to profit from the destructive content because it 
meant more eyeballs, more advertising, more dollars.
    Given those warnings, it seems inexcusable that Facebook 
waited a decade to begin, and only to begin, figuring out that 
Instagram needed parental controls. In the past 2 months, this 
subcommittee has heard horrifying stories from countless 
parents whose lives and their children's lives have been 
changed forever. One father from Connecticut wrote to me about 
his daughter who developed severe anxiety in high school 
because of constant pressure from Instagram.
    That pressure became so intense, following her home from 
school, following her everywhere she went, following her into 
her bedroom in the evening that she attempted suicide. 
Fortunately, her parents stepped in and sought help and found a 
recovery program, but the experience continues to haunt her and 
her family. Facebook's researchers call this fall into that 
kind of dark rabbit hole a perfect storm, that is the quote, 
``perfect storm,'' created by its own algorithm that exacerbate 
downward spirals harmful to teens.
    Again, Facebook knows about the harm, it has done the 
research, the studies, the surveys repeatedly, it knows the 
destructive consequences of the algorithms and designs, it 
knows teens struggle with addiction and depression on 
Instagram, but that data has been hidden like the algorithms 
themselves. Just yesterday, that surgeon general's report 
provided powerful documentation on how social media can fan 
those flames and fuel the fires of the mental health crisis 
that we face among teens, and it signals that something is 
terribly wrong. What really stuns me is the lack of action.
    In fact, just within the last two months. Two months ago, 
this subcommittee heard testimony from Facebook's global head 
of safety, Ms. Antigone Davis. At that time, I showed her the 
pro-eating disorder rampant on Instagram, I demonstrated 
through an experiment how its algorithms will flood a teen with 
triggering and toxic messages in just hours after we created an 
account.
    This was glorification of being dangerously underweight, 
tips on skipping meals, images we could not in good conscience 
show in this room. It has been 2 months, so we have repeated 
our experiment. On Monday, we created another fake account for 
a teenager and followed a few accounts promoting eating 
disorders. And again, within an hour, all of our 
recommendations promoted pro-anorexia and eating disorder 
content. Two months ago, the global head of public safety for 
Facebook was put on notice by this subcommittee. Nothing has 
changed. It is all still happening. And in the meantime, more 
lives have been broken, real lives, with real families and 
futures, and you hear from them yourself.
    We all know that if Facebook saw a significant threat to 
its growth or ad revenue, it wouldn't wait 2 months to take 
action. So why does it take months for Facebook to act when our 
kids face danger, when time is not on our side? Time is not on 
our side. So no wonder parents are worried. In fact, parents 
are furious. They don't trust Instagram, Google, TikTok and all 
of their big tech peers.
    And by the way, this is not an issue limited to Instagram 
or Facebook. Parents are asking, what is Congress doing to 
protect our kids? And the resounding bipartisan message from 
this committee is legislation is coming. We can't rely on trust 
anymore, we can't rely on self-policing. It is what parents, 
and our children are demanding. Senator Blackburn and I are 
listening to them, as are other members of committee. We are 
working together.
    Your proposal for an industry body, as parents yet again, 
they trust us, we will do it ourselves. But self-regulation 
relies on that trust that has been squandered. We need to make 
sure that the responsibility is on big tech to put a safe 
product on the market. You can't be allowed to conceal when 
products are harming kids, so the first imperative is 
transparency. We need real transparency into these 800 pound 
gorilla black box algorithms and addictive designs, and 
disclosure has to include independent qualified researchers who 
will then tell the story to the public. We need to update our 
children's privacy laws.
    Congress should pass the bipartisan Children's and Teens 
Online Privacy Protection Act authored by Senator Markey, who 
is here today. I am proud to be working with him on updating 
and expanding it. Parents and children need more power and more 
effective tools to protect themselves on the platform.
    And that is why Senator Blackburn and I are working on a 
framework, and we have made good progress to enable that 
protection. There really should be a duty of care. United 
Kingdom has imposed it. It is part of the law there. Why not 
here? That ought to be part of the framework of legislation 
that we are considering. Section 230 reform. You make reference 
to it in your testimony.
    The days of absolute broad unique immunity for big tech are 
over. And finally, enforcement. State authorities, Federal 
authorities, law enforcement has to be rigorous and strong. So 
I hope that we will begin the effort of working together, but 
one way or the other, this committee will move forward. And 
again, I thank you for being here. I thank all of my colleagues 
for attending. And I ask for remarks by the Ranking Member 
Senator Blackburn.

              STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE

    Senator Blackburn. And thank you, Senator Blumenthal. And 
welcome to everyone. We are appreciative that you are here 
today, Mr. Mosseri. We are grateful for your time and for your 
testimony. I do want to thank Senator Blumenthal and his team 
for the work. This is the fifth hearing that we have held 
dealing with the issues around big tech and the invasions of 
privacy, the lack of data security, the need for Section 230 
reforms, and looking very directly at social media platforms, 
and the effect--the negative and adverse effect--that they are 
having on our children.
    I will tell you that today I am just a little bit 
frustrated. I am frustrated because this is now the fourth time 
in the past 2 years that we have spoken with someone from Meta, 
as you are now calling yourselves, and I feel like the 
conversation continues to repeat itself ad nauseum.
    And when I go back home to Tennessee, I know this the 
people there, lots of moms and dads and teachers and 
pediatricians, they share this frustration because they 
continue to hear from you that change is coming, that things 
are going to be different, that there are going to be more 
tools in the toolbox, that kids are going to be safer online, 
that privacy is going to be protected, and that data is going 
to be secure. But guess what? Nothing changes. Nothing. The 
chairman just talked about what happened with Ms. Davis when 
she came in and how we pointed all of this out specifically of 
what we had found. And yet yesterday, what happened? The exact 
same thing.
    So I hope that you appreciate the frustration that the 
American public feels, that they appreciate what the Internet 
can do for them in bringing the world closer, but the 
applications that you are pushing forward, the social media, 
the addictive nature, the way this affects children, there is 
such a frustration that you turn a blind eye toward taking 
responsibility and accepting accountability for your platform, 
how you are structured, and how you use the data on these 
children.
    Yesterday, at 3 a.m., which is midnight in the Silicon 
Valley, you released a list of product updates that you said 
would raise the standard for protecting teens and supporting 
parents online. And I am not sure what hours you all keep in 
California, but where I am from, the middle of the night is 
when you drop news that you don't want people to see.
    And maybe you thought that doing it in this manner would 
keep members of this subcommittee from seeing it right away and 
from raising concerns. Because while I am sure you know that we 
fully share the goal of protecting kids and teens online, what 
we aren't sure about is how the half measures you have 
introduced are going to get us to the point where we need to be 
to truly protect teens and young adults online. For example, we 
know that social media is an integral part of teens' daily 
lives.
    According to the Mayo Clinic, 97 percent of teens between 
ages 13 and 17 use a social media platform, and 45 percent say 
they are online almost constantly. So while telling teens to 
take a break might seem helpful on the face of things, it's 
probably not going to get most teenagers to stop doing what 
they are doing and take a break. Educational tools for parents 
can be helpful, but frankly, I am more concerned about the 
things we know kids and teens are hiding from their parents.
    We know that Facebook and Instagram have encouraged teens 
to use secondary accounts and told them to be authentic, and we 
all remember what it was like to be a teenager. So while 
parents might gain some insight into what their teens do on 
their main accounts, what do they do about the accounts they 
don't even know exist, the ones that Instagram is encouraging 
them to create?
    And Instagram announced in July that it would default to 
all teens onto private accounts when they sign up for the site. 
Yet just yesterday, my team created an account as a 15-year-old 
girl and it defaulted to public. So, while Instagram is touting 
all these safety measures, they aren't even making sure that 
these safety measures are in effect. For me, this is a case of 
too little, too late, because now there is bipartisan momentum 
both here and in the House to tackle these problems we are 
seeing with big tech.
    As Senator Blumenthal said, we are working on children's 
privacy, online privacy, data security, and Section 230 
reforms. This is the appropriate time to pass a national 
consumer privacy bill, as well as kid specific legislation to 
keep minors safe online. We also need to give serious thought 
to how companies like Facebook and Instagram continue to hide 
behind Section 230s liability shield when it comes to content 
like human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug trafficking.
    Despite Congress speaking clearly to this issue when we 
passed FOSTA and SESTA a few years ago. Mr. Mosseri, there is a 
lot of work for us to do to improve the online experience and 
to protect our children and our grandchildren. I think it is 
best if we do this together, and I look forward to hearing your 
ideas and your testimony today. Thank you for your appearance.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Blackburn. And I am 
pleased to introduce Adam Mosseri. He spent over 11 years at 
Meta, and oversees all functions of the Instagram app, 
including engineering, product management, and operations. Mr. 
Mosseri, the floor is yours.

         STATEMENT OF ADAM MOSSERI, HEAD OF INSTAGRAM, 
                      META PLATFORMS INC.

    Mr. Mosseri. Right. Apologies--oh, my apologies. Thank you, 
Senator. Chairman Blumenthal, Ranking Member Blackburn, members 
of the subcommittee, I am Adam Mosseri and I have served as the 
head of Instagram since 2018. And over the last few months, the 
subcommittee has held a number of hearings on the safety and 
well-being of young people online. This is a critically 
important topic, as you said in your opening Statement, and it 
is something that we think about and work on every day at 
Instagram.
    The Internet has changed how we all communicate. It has 
changed how we express ourselves. It has changed how we stay 
connected to the people that we care about. It has also changed 
what it's like to be a teenager. Teenagers have always spent 
time with their friends, developed new interests, and explored 
their identities. Today, they are doing those things on 
platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat.
    I firmly believe that Instagram and that the Internet more 
broadly can be a positive force in young people's lives. I am 
inspired every day by teens on Instagram, and I am proud that 
our platform is a place where they can spend time with the 
people that they care about, where they can start incredible 
movements, where they can find new interests, or they can even 
turn a passion into a business. I also know that sometimes 
young people can come to Instagram dealing with difficult 
things in their lives. I believe that Instagram can help in 
those critical moments.
    That is one of the things that our research has shown, and 
to me, this is the most important work that we can do, taking 
on complex issues like bullying and social comparison and 
making changes. Now, I recognize that many in this room have 
deep reservations about our company. But I want to assure you 
that we do have the same goal. We all want teens to be safe 
online.
    The Internet isn't going away, and I believe there is 
important work that we can do together, industry and 
policymakers, to raise the standards across the Internet to 
better serve and protect young people. But the reality is that 
keeping people safe is not just about any one company. An 
external survey just last month suggested that more teens are 
using TikTok and YouTube than Instagram. This is an industry 
wide challenge that requires industry wide solutions and 
industry wide standards. Now, we have a specific proposal.
    We believe there should be an industry body that will 
determine the best practices when it comes to what I think are 
the three most important questions with regards to youth 
safety, how to verify age, how to build age appropriate 
experiences, and how to build parental controls. The body 
should receive input from civil society, from parents, and from 
regulators. The standards need to be high and the protections 
universal. I believe that companies like ours should have to 
earn some of their Section 230 protections by adhering to those 
standards. And we have been calling for regulation for nearly 3 
years now. And from where I sit, there is no area more 
important than new safety.
    That said, I understand that developing policy takes time, 
so we are going to continue to push forward on the safety and 
well-being of young people online. An age verification. We are 
developing new technologies to address this industry wide 
challenge.
    We are creating a menu of options to allow people to verify 
that they are old enough to use Instagram that extend beyond 
simply relying on an ID card. And we are building new 
technology to proactively find and remove accounts belonging to 
those under the age of 13. We are also using technology to 
understand if people are above or below the age of 18, so that 
we can create a more age appropriate version of Instagram for 
them.
    For example, adults can no longer message people under the 
age of 18 that don't follow them. And as of this week, we 
announced that people can no longer tag or mention teens that 
don't follow them as well. We also provide tools for parents. 
Parents and guardians know what is best for their teens and 
relaunching Instagram's first set of parental controls in March 
of next year, allowing them to see how much time their teens 
spend on Instagram and to set time limits. We will also give 
teens a new option to notify their parents if they report 
someone, giving their parents an opportunity to talk about it 
with them.
    As a father of three, I care a great deal about creating an 
online world that is safe for my children and that allows them 
to benefit from all the amazing things the Internet has to 
offer. As the head of Instagram, I recognize the gravity of my 
role in making this happen not only for my kids, but for 
generations to come. I am hopeful that we can work together to 
reach that goal. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Mosseri follows:]

        Prepared Statement of Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, 
                          Meta Platforms Inc.
I. Introduction
    Chairman Blumenthal, Ranking Member Blackburn, and members of the 
Subcommittee, my name is Adam Mosseri, and I have served as the Head of 
Instagram since 2018. Over the last few months, this Subcommittee has 
held a number of hearings about the safety and well-being of young 
people online. This is a critically important topic, and it is 
something that we think about--and work on--every day at Instagram.
    Our mission at Instagram is to bring people closer to the people 
and things they love. Our platform began a decade ago with a few 
million users. Today, we proudly serve well over a billion people. 
While our platform began as a simple photo-sharing app, we have evolved 
to provide new ways for people to express themselves, including 
Stories, Reels, and Live. Teens use our app every day to spend time 
with the people they care about, explore their interests, and express 
themselves. They are doing incredible things on our platform, and I 
firmly believe that Instagram can be a force for good in the lives of 
young people.
    Much has been said recently about Instagram and its impact on young 
people. As a parent and as the Head of Instagram, this is an issue I 
care deeply about. It's an area our company has been focused on for 
many years, and I'm proud of our work to help keep young people safe, 
to support young people who are struggling, and to empower parents with 
tools to help their teenagers develop healthy and safe online habits.
    I hope we can work together--across industry and government--to 
raise the standards across the Internet and better serve young people. 
The reality is that keeping young people safe online is not just about 
one company. An external survey from just last month suggested that 
more U.S. teens are using TikTok and YouTube than Instagram.\1\ With 
teens using multiple platforms, it is critical that we address youth 
online safety as an industry challenge and develop industry-wide 
solutions and standards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Mike Prouix, Weekly Usage of TikTok Surpasses Instagram Among 
U.S. Gen Z Youth, Forrester (Nov. 18, 2021), https://www.forrester.com/
blogs/weekly-usage-of-tiktok-surpasses-instagram-among-us-gen-z-youth/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. Keeping Young People Safe on Instagram
    As Head of Instagram, I am especially focused on the safety of the 
youngest people who use our services. This work includes keeping 
underage users off our platform, designing age-appropriate experiences 
for people ages 13 to 18, and building parental controls.
Age Verification on Instagram
    Instagram is built for people 13 and older. If a child is under the 
age of 13, they are not permitted on Instagram. When we learn someone 
underage has created an account, we remove them. In fact, in the third 
quarter of this year, we removed over 850,000 accounts on Instagram 
that were unable to demonstrate that they meet our minimum age 
requirement.
    Understanding people's age on the Internet is a complex and 
industry-wide challenge--especially considering that many young people 
in the U.S. do not have a driver's license until they are 15 or 16 
years old. However, we're building new technology to proactively find 
and remove accounts belonging to those under 13 and to identify those 
people who may be under the age of 18.
    In addition to requiring people to share their date of birth when 
they register and allowing anyone to report a suspected underage 
account, we train our technology to identify if people are above or 
below 18 using multiple signals. We look at things like wishing people 
a happy birthday and the age written in those messages--for example, 
``Happy 21st Bday!'' or ``Happy Quinceanera.'' This technology isn't 
perfect, and we're always working to improve it, but that's why it's 
important that we use it alongside many other signals to understand 
people's ages.
    There is more that we can do as an industry to ensure that there 
are clear standards of age verification across apps. For instance, I 
think it would be much more effective to solve the problem at the phone 
level so that a young person using a phone has an age-appropriate 
experience across any of the apps that they use on that device.
Keeping Instagram Safe
    Understanding age is important so that we can create a more age-
appropriate version of Instagram for the youngest people on our 
platform. We've put in place multiple protections to create safe and 
age-appropriate experiences for people between the ages of 13 and 18.
    Wherever we can, we want to stop young people from hearing from 
adults they don't know or that they don't want to hear from. We believe 
accounts that offer people more control about who can see and respond 
to their content are the best way to prevent this from happening, and 
we recently announced that everyone who is under 16 years old in the 
U.S. is defaulted into what is called a private account when they join 
Instagram. For young people who already have a public account on 
Instagram, we are sharing a notification highlighting the benefits of a 
private account and explaining how to change their privacy settings.
    Private accounts let people control who sees or responds to their 
content. If a young person has a private account, people have to follow 
them to see their posts, Stories, and Reels, unless they choose to 
allow others to re-share their content. We're also--by default--
eliminating the ability for young people to be tagged or mentioned by 
others or to have their content included in Reels Remixes or Guides. 
Additionally, people can't comment on their content in those places, 
and they won't see the young person's content at all in places like 
Explore or through hashtags.
    Encouraging young people to have private accounts is important when 
it comes to stopping unwanted contact from adults. But we've gone even 
further to make young people's accounts difficult to find for certain 
adults. We developed technology that allows us to find accounts that 
have shown potentially suspicious behavior--for example, an adult 
account that might already have been blocked by another young person--
and to stop those accounts from interacting with young people's 
accounts. Using this technology, we don't show young people's accounts 
in Explore, Reels, or `Accounts Suggested For You' to these adults. If 
they find young people's accounts by searching for their usernames, 
they are not able to follow them. They also are not able to see 
comments from young people on other people's posts nor are they able to 
leave comments on young people's posts.
    Additionally, we've launched a number of tools to restrict direct 
messaging between teens and adults and to prompt teens to be more 
cautious about interactions in direct messaging. To protect teens from 
unwanted contact from adults, we introduced a new feature that prevents 
adults from sending messages to people under 18 who don't follow them. 
For instance, when an adult tries to message a teen who doesn't follow 
them, they receive a notification that says that sending a Direct 
Message isn't an option.
    In addition to preventing conversations between adults and teens 
who don't follow one another, we started using prompts--or safety 
notices--to encourage teens to be cautious in conversations with adults 
they're already connected to. These safety notices alert young people 
when an adult who has been exhibiting potentially suspicious behavior 
is interacting with them. For example, if an adult is sending a large 
amount of friend or message requests to people under 18, we use this 
tool to alert the recipients and give them an option to end the 
conversation, or block, report, or restrict the adult.
    Our work to create age-appropriate experiences for teenagers on 
Facebook and Instagram also includes age gating certain content, 
prohibiting certain types of ads from being served to minors, and 
limiting options for serving any ads to these users.
    We've always had rules about the kinds of content we suggest to 
people in places like the Explore tab. These rules apply to everyone, 
but we're going to go a step further for young people. We're developing 
a new experience that will raise the bar even higher for what we 
recommend for them in Search, Explore, hashtags, and suggested 
accounts. This new experience will make it harder for young people to 
find potentially sensitive content on Instagram.
    We're also optimistic about using nudges to point people towards 
different topics. External experts have suggested that, if people are 
dwelling on one topic for a while, it could be helpful to nudge them 
towards other topics.\2\ \3\ That's why we're building a new experience 
that will nudge people towards other topics if they've been spending 
time on one topic for a while.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Aditya Purohit et al., Designing for Digital Detox: Making 
Social Media Less Addictive with Digital Nudges, Assoc. for Computing 
Machinery (Apr. 2020), https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3334480.3382810.
    \3\ Christoph Schneider et al., Digital Nudging: Guiding Online 
User Choices through Interface Design. Communications of the ACM (July 
2018), https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/7/229029-digital-nudging/
fulltext.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    When it comes to advertising, we've long restricted certain kinds 
of ads from being served to minors, and we recently limited 
advertisers' options for serving ads to people under 18. Now, 
advertisers can only serve ads to people under 18 based on age, gender, 
and location but not interests or activity. This means that previously 
available targeting options, like those based on interests or on their 
activity on other apps and websites, are no longer available to 
advertisers.
Supporting Teens Who May Be Struggling
    In addition to making sure young people are safe on Instagram, we 
believe it's important to support young people who are struggling with 
mental health and well-being.
    Sometimes young people come to Instagram dealing with hard things 
in their lives. I believe Instagram can help many of them in those 
moments. This is something that our research has suggested as well. One 
of the internal studies that has been the subject of much discussion 
showed that teen boys and girls who reported struggling with 
loneliness, anxiety, sadness, and eating disorders were more likely to 
say that Instagram made those difficult times better rather than worse.
    We care deeply about the teens on Instagram, which is in part why 
we research complex issues like bullying and social comparison and make 
changes. We have a long track record of using research and close 
collaboration with our Safety Advisory Board, Youth Advisors, and 
additional experts and organizations to inform changes to our apps and 
provide resources for the people who use them.
    We don't allow people to post graphic suicide and self-harm 
content, content that depicts methods or materials involved in suicide 
and self-harm (even if it's not graphic), or fictional content that 
promotes or encourages suicide or self-harm. In the third quarter of 
2021, we removed 96 percent of this content before it was reported to 
us.
    Since 2019, we've taken steps to protect more vulnerable members of 
our community from being exposed to suicide and self-harm related 
content that is permissible under our policies, for example, if someone 
posts about their recovery journey. We remove known suicide-and self-
harm-related posts from places where people discover new content, 
including our Explore page, and we will not recommend accounts we have 
identified as featuring suicide or self-injury content.
    We also remove certain hashtags and accounts from appearing in 
search. When someone starts typing a known hashtag or account related 
to suicide and self-harm into search, we restrict these results. We 
also add sensitivity screens to blur more content that isn't graphic 
but could have a negative impact on someone searching.
    We have a resource center \4\ developed with help from mental 
health partners, and, when a post is identified as being about suicide 
(either because a friend reported it or our technology detected it), a 
person at Meta reviews the post. If it's about suicide, we provide 
resources to the poster such as a one-click link to the Crisis Text 
Line. Additionally, whomever reported the post also receives resources 
and information about how to help the person in distress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Suicide Prevention, https://www.facebook.com/safety/wellbeing/
suicideprevention.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Similarly, we don't allow content that promotes or encourages 
eating disorders on our platforms. We use technology and reports from 
our community to find and remove this content as quickly as we can, and 
we're always working to improve. We follow expert advice from academics 
and mental health organizations, like the National Eating Disorder 
Association (``NEDA''), to strike the difficult balance between 
allowing people to share their mental health experiences while 
protecting them from potentially harmful content.
    We've made a number of changes to support those struggling with 
eating disorders. When someone searches for or posts content related to 
eating disorders or body image issues, they'll see a pop-up with tips 
and an easy way to connect to organizations like NEDA in the US.
    We also introduced a dedicated reporting option for eating disorder 
content. People have always been able to report content related to 
eating disorders, but, until recently, this was combined with the 
option to report suicide and self-harm-related content, because they 
are part of one policy--but now people will see a separate dedicated 
option for eating disorder content.
    We also worked with the JED Foundation to create expert-and 
research-backed educational resources for teens on how to navigate 
experiences like negative social comparison.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ More information on this work is available here: https://
pressuretobeperfect.jedfounda
tion.org/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Lastly, we don't allow people to bully or harass other people on 
Instagram and have rules in place that prohibit this type of content. 
We've also built tools that help prevent bullying from happening in the 
first place and empower people to manage their accounts so they never 
have to see it.
    We launched Restrict in 2019, which allows people to protect 
themselves from bullying without the fear of retaliation.\6\ We also 
created comment warnings when people try to post potentially offensive 
comments. So far, we've found that, about 50 percent of the time, 
people edited or deleted their comments based on these warnings.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ Introducing the ``Restrict'' Feature to Protect Against 
Bullying, Instagram Blog 
(Oct. 2, 2019), https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/stand-
up-against-bullying-with-restrict.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We recently announced a new tool called `Limits' that lets people 
automatically hide comments and direct message requests from people who 
don't follow them, or who only recently followed them. We developed 
this feature because we heard that creators and public figures 
sometimes experience sudden spikes of comments and message requests 
from people they don't know. In many cases, this is an outpouring of 
support, but sometimes it can also mean an influx of unwanted comments 
or messages. Now, if you're going through that--or think you may be 
about to--you can turn on Limits and protect yourself.
    We also recently launched Hidden Words, which automatically filters 
message requests containing offensive words, phrases, and emojis into a 
separate inbox so people never have to see them. Because messages are 
private conversations, we don't proactively look for hate speech or 
bullying the same way we do elsewhere on Instagram, so Hidden Words 
allows people to control what they see and receive in messages and 
protect themselves from abuse. In addition, all accounts on Instagram 
have the option to switch off messages from people they don't follow. 
This means people never have to receive a message from anyone they 
don't know.
    These are just a few examples of the tools we developed to protect 
people from bullying and harassment. We have numerous other tools 
including comment controls, blocking, and managing who can comment on 
your posts and who can tag and mention you.
Giving Teens Tools to Control their Experience
    We want to give people on our platform--especially teenagers--tools 
to help them manage their experiences in the ways that they want and 
need, including the time they spend. We have built time management 
tools including Daily Limit, which lets people know when they've 
reached the total amount of time they want to spend on Instagram each 
day; `You're All Caught Up,' which notifies people when they've caught 
up with new content on their feed; and controls to mute notifications.
    This week, we launched `Take A Break' to go even further and 
empower people to make informed decisions about how they're spending 
their time on Instagram. We'll show reminders suggesting that people 
close Instagram if they've been scrolling for a certain amount of time, 
and we'll show them expert-backed tips to help them reflect and reset. 
We want to make sure young people are aware of this feature, so we'll 
show them notifications suggesting they turn the reminders on.
    Also this week, we began testing a new activity center, a central 
place for people to see and manage their information on Instagram. For 
the first time, people will be able to bulk delete content they've 
posted like photos and videos as well as their previous likes and 
comments. While available to everyone, this tool will help young people 
more fully understand what information they've shared on Instagram and 
what is visible to others and give them an easy way to manage their 
digital footprint.
Prioritizing and Expanding Parental Controls
    We want parents to have the information to help their teens have a 
safe and positive experience on Instagram. That's why in March we're 
launching Instagram's first set of controls for parents and guardians, 
allowing them to see what their teens are up to on Instagram and manage 
things like the time they spend in our app. These new features, which 
parents and teens can opt into, will give parents tools to meaningfully 
shape their teen's experience.
    In the US, we've also collaborated with The Child Mind Institute 
and ConnectSafely to publish a new Parents Guide that includes the 
latest safety tools and privacy settings as well as a list of tips and 
conversation starters to help parents navigate discussions with their 
teens about their online presence.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ Instagram Teen Safety for Parents, https://about.instagram.com/
community/parents#guide.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. Using Research to Improve Instagram
    A lot of focus in recent weeks has been about internal research. As 
our Head of Research Pratiti Raychoudhury has written, the public 
reporting about our internal research was mischaracterized, so I want 
to take a moment to address it. Among other things, the research in 
question actually demonstrated that many teens said that using 
Instagram helped them when they were struggling with the kinds of hard 
moments that teenagers have always faced.
    In addition to putting specific findings in context, it is also 
critical to make the nature of this research clear. This research, some 
of which relied on input from only 40 teens, was designed to inform 
internal conversations about teens' most negative perceptions of 
Instagram. It did not measure causal relationships between Instagram 
and real-world issues.
    Our goal with all of the research that we do is to improve the 
services that we offer. That means our insights often shed light on 
problems so that we can evaluate possible solutions and work to 
improve. We believe this work is critical to delivering a better 
Instagram.
    Moving forward, we will continue to collaborate and engage in data-
sharing with researchers on issues related to young people. We have 
been working with external academics and research partners in this 
space for many years, and we plan to do even more early next year. This 
is something that we have done in our program with independent 
academics around the U.S. 2020 elections. We will take the methodology 
from the U.S. 2020 program and apply it to well-being research over the 
coming year. This will involve collaborative co-design of studies and 
peer-reviewed publication of findings.
    In addition, we are continuing our investment in external research 
to better understand how to keep young people safe and to ensure their 
well-being is protected in the metaverse. For example, we committed to 
providing $5 million over three years to the Digital Wellness Lab at 
Boston Children's Hospital for independent research on these important 
topics.
IV. Supporting Industry Regulation to Protect Young People
    The reality is that keeping young people safe online is not just 
about one company. We've been calling for updated regulations for 
nearly three years. From where I sit, there is no area more important 
than youth safety.
    Specifically, we believe there should be an industry body that will 
determine best practices when it comes to at least three questions: how 
to verify age, how to design age-appropriate experiences, and how to 
build parental controls. This body should receive input from civil 
society, parents, and regulators to create standards that are high and 
protections that are universal. And I believe that companies like ours 
should have to adhere to these standards to earn some of our Section 
230 protections.
    In addition, the body could take steps to require each member to 
publish regular reports on the progress they are making against each 
standard and to develop a free and accessible information hub for 
parents and educators.
    This proposal is a work in progress, but we hope that it will 
contribute to the ongoing discussion about how appropriate regulation 
can help us address these critical issues. In the meantime, we will 
continue to push forward on safety and well-being for young people 
online.
V. Conclusion
    We want young people to enjoy using Instagram while making sure we 
don't compromise on their privacy and safety. As we work toward that 
goal, we'll continue listening to them, their parents, lawmakers, and 
experts to build an Instagram that works for everyone and is trusted by 
parents.

    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Mosseri. I will take the 
first round of questions. Again, we are going to do 5 minute 
rounds. Just a short while ago at our last hearing, TikTok, 
Snapchat, and YouTube sat at that table, and they all committed 
to making internal research algorithms and datasets about their 
effect on children and teens available to independent 
researchers. Will you commit to doing the same?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we believe it is important to be 
transparent, both about ranking and algorithms and about data 
for research. I can commit to you today that we will provide 
meaningful access to data so that third party researchers can 
design their own studies and make their own conclusions about 
the effects of well-being on young people and on ranking. I can 
commit to do all I can to explain how ranking works and to find 
other ways for us to be transparent about algorithms.
    Senator Blumenthal. Will you support a legal requirement 
that independent overseers and researchers not only have access 
to the data sets, but also check the way algorithms are driving 
content and recommend changes that you will adopt?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I would be happy to have my office 
work with you on that. I believe that direction is an important 
one. We do a number of things in this area already. We provide 
information every month on the effects of our algorithms that 
are removing problematic content from our system.
    Senator Blumenthal. Will you commit to a legal requirement 
that the access be provided and that an independent, separately 
appointed and separately funded body, not an industry body, as 
you have suggested, but an independent overseer and researcher, 
have that access?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator on the specifics of how the body 
works, I am not a legal expert, but yes, I think there should 
be requirements and standards for how companies like ours are 
transparent about both data and algorithms.
    Senator Blumenthal. Because an industry body is not 
Government regulation that Mark Zuckerberg or others at 
Facebook and elsewhere have called for. An industry body 
setting standards is not the same as an independent one.
    Let me ask you, shouldn't children and parents have the 
right to report dangerous material and get a response, get some 
action? Because we have heard harrowing stories from parents 
who tried to report and have heard no response.
    My office made a report and got no response until CNN made 
the report to press relations. Shouldn't there be an obligation 
that Instagram will respond?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, yes, I believe we try and respond to 
all reports and if we ever fail to do so, that is a mistake 
that we should correct.
    Senator Blumenthal. Instagram is addictive. That is the 
view that has been repeated again and again and again by people 
who are experts in this field. Parents know it. And for teens 
who see Instagram's algorithms encouraging, for example, eating 
disorders, they find it almost impossible to stop. The UK code 
restricts Instagram's use of addictive design, legally 
restricts its use of addictive design. Shouldn't we have a 
similar rule in the United States?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, I don't believe the 
research suggests that our products are addictive. Research 
actually shows that on 11 of 12 difficult issues that teens 
face, teens that are struggling said Instagram helps for their 
harms. Now we always care about how people feel about their 
experiences on our platform, and it is my responsibility as 
Head of Instagram to do everything I can to help keep people 
safe, and we are going to continue to do so.
    Senator Blumenthal. We can debate the meaning of the word 
addictive, but the fact is that teens who go to the platform, 
find it difficult, maybe sometimes impossible, to stop. And 
part of the reason is that more content is driven to them to 
keep them on the site, to aggravate the emotions that are so 
seductive and ultimately addictive.
    The UK recognized it by imposing that design restriction. 
The same ought to be done in the United States. Let me ask you, 
will you commit to make the pause on Instagram Kids permanent? 
In other words, stop developing a site for, an app for, 
children under 13?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, the idea of building a version of 
Instagram for 10 to 12 year olds was trying to solve a problem. 
The Idea being that we know that 10 to 12 year olds are online. 
They want to use platforms like Instagram, and it is difficult 
for companies like ours to verify age for those that are so 
young, they don't yet have an ID.
    The hope is to always or the plan was to always make sure 
that no child between 10 and 12 had access to any version of 
Instagram, even one that was designed for them, without their 
parent's consent.
    And so what I can commit to today is that no child between 
the ages of 10 to 12, should we ever manage to build Instagram 
for 10 to 12 year olds, will have access to that without their 
explicit parental consent.
    Senator Blumenthal. I have more questions. My time has 
expired. I thank you for answering my questions, Mr. Mosseri. 
Senator Blackburn.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Staying on 
Instagram Kids for a moment. I know you were doing research 
into 8 year olds and pulling together data on 8 year olds, and 
I assume and that that was in relation to Instagram Kids. So, 
are you still doing research on children under age 13?
    Mr. Mosseri. Sorry, I am making sure my mic is on. Senator, 
I don't believe we ever did any research with eight-year olds 
for Instagram Kids, and neither are we doing that today. I 
think we entirely paused the project.
    Senator Blackburn. OK. And then if you were to completely 
remove that project, who would make that decision?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, it was my decision to pause Instagram 
Kids----
    Senator Blackburn. OK, so you would--it would be your 
decision to just do away with it?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am responsible for Instagram, so 
yes, it would be my decision.
    Senator Blackburn. OK, let's talk about Jane Doe v. 
Facebook.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, what?
    Senator Blackburn. Jane Doe v. Facebook.
    Mr. Mosseri. OK. Apologies.
    Senator Blackburn. OK. I assume you can't get into the 
details of that because the Supreme Court is still deciding 
whether or not to take that case. But the petition, which 
alleges that Facebook enabled the trafficking of a minor on its 
platform, really raises some very serious questions and 
concerns about what we are seeing and how people were using 
Instagram. So do you prohibit known sex offenders from creating 
Instagram accounts?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, human trafficking and any 
exploitation of children is abhorrent, and we don't allow it on 
our platforms.
    Senator Blackburn. OK, do you require minors to link their 
accounts to a parent or guardian's account?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, no.
    Senator Blackburn. You don't?
    Mr. Mosseri. If you are over the age of 13, you can sign up 
for an Instagram account. But we do believe that parental 
controls are incredibly important, which is why we are 
launching our first version in March of next year.
    Senator Blackburn. OK. You know, yes, the controls are 
going to be vitally important, but an industry group is not 
going to give the controls that are needed and probably not 
even an independent group. That is why we will do something 
with Federal statute.
    Also, I think it would be interesting to know how many 
people that are in human trafficking, sex trafficking, and drug 
trafficking that have been indicted or convicted that were 
using Instagram. Could you all provide that number for us?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I would be happy to talk to the team 
and get back to you.
    Senator Blackburn. That would be excellent. My staff 
created an Instagram account for a 15-year-old girl and it 
defaulted to public. I mentioned that earlier. Isn't the 
opposite supposed to happen? And have you considered turning 
off the public option altogether for minor accounts?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question. I learned 
of that just this morning. It turns out that we default those 
under the age of 16 to private accounts for the vast majority 
of accounts which are created on Android and iOS. We have 
missed that on the web, and we will correct that quickly.
    Senator Blackburn. OK. Also, when they created this 
account, it defaulted to this Statement, ``include your account 
when recommending similar accounts people might want to 
follow.'' Is this a feature that should remain on by default 
for minors?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we think it is important that no 
matter what your age, it is easy for you to find accounts that 
you are interested in.
    Senator Blackburn. Even if you are under 18?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe teenagers too have 
interests, and that should be easy for them to find those.
    Senator Blackburn. Teenagers have interests, yes. But what 
we are trying to address are the adverse and negative effects 
that are happening to children because they are on your 
platform. Can adults not labeled as suspicious by you still 
find, follow, and message minors?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, if your account is private, if 
someone follows you, you have to approve it. So adults can ask 
to follow you, but you have the decision or the ability to 
decide whether or not they are allowed to.
    Senator Blackburn. OK. In your testimony, you said you 
removed more than 850,000 accounts because they did not meet 
your minimum age requirement. These accounts were disabled 
because the users did not provide identification showing that 
they were at least 13 years old. So why did you say you didn't 
want to know when Jojo Siwa said she had been on Instagram 
since she was 8 years old. Is that your general attitude toward 
kids who are on your platform?
    Mr. Mosseri. Absolutely not, Senator. We invest a lot to 
try to identify those under the age of 13, and whenever we find 
them, we remove.
    Senator Blackburn. OK, but at that moment, when you 
responded to her that you did not want to know, why didn't you 
use that as a teaching moment?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I would say it was a missed 
opportunity.
    Senator Blackburn. Indeed, it was a missed opportunity, and 
it sends the wrong message. It looked as if you were 
encouraging kids that want to be online stars to get on earlier 
and to build their audience. This is a part of our frustration 
with you, with Instagram, and with these platforms. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Blackburn. Senator 
Klobuchar.

               STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA

    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you. Mr. Mosseri, I am looking at 
this from a perspective of parents, and I guess I have talked 
to parents, since so many of them have told me that they have 
done everything they can to try to get their kids off your 
product, kids who are addicted at age 10. And they are scared 
for their kids. They want their kids to do their homework and 
not get addicted to Instagram.
    And yet we then find out that what your company did was to 
increase your marketing budget to try to woo more teens, from 
$67 million in 2018 to $390 million focused on kids this year. 
And so when I hear you are going to suddenly, with all your 
technological wizards, develop some kind of new way to check to 
see if really young kids are on there, you could have been 
spending this money, $390 million, to do that for years. You 
have the money to do it. I think that we are in diametrically 
opposed goals, the goals of parents out there and the goals of 
your company. Our kids aren't cash cows.
    And that is exactly what has been going on. Because when 
you look at the marketing budget and you look at what your 
companies has done, it is to try to get more and more of them 
on board. And when I look at your company's quotes from one 
document, you--not you personally, but your company viewed 
losing teen users as an ``existential threat,'' whereas parents 
are viewing their kids' addictions to your product and other 
products as an existential threat to their families.
    So my first question is, is that in fact the truth, that 
you have been increasing money, advertising money to woo more 
teen kids onto your platform?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, no, I don't believe those statistics 
are correct. We increased our overall marketing budget between 
last year and this year, but it was not--I think, as you 
characterized it, as the majority of it was focused on teens, 
and that is not true.
    Senator Klobuchar. OK, had you view the kids as a feeder 
way for people to get into your product? Have you not done 
things to get more teenagers interested in your product? Are 
you not worried about losing them to other platforms? You 
better tell the truth. You are under oath.
    Mr. Mosseri. Absolutely, Senator. Senator, we try and make 
Instagram as relevant as possible for people of all ages, 
including teens. Teens do amazing things on Instagram every 
day, but we also invest, I believe, more than anyone else in 
keeping people, including teens, safe. We will spend around $5 
billion this year alone, and we have over 40,000 people working 
on safety integrity at the company.
    Senator Klobuchar. And do you think 3 hours a day is an 
appropriate amount of time for kids to spend on Instagram?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator----
    Senator Klobuchar. I am asking this because just when you 
put out those new rules, that was an option for parents 3 hours 
a day. Is that a good use of kids' time?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question.
    Senator Klobuchar. And it was in your safety tools that you 
just put out there. The first option given to kids and to 
parents was 3 hours a day.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator----
    Senator Klobuchar. I have them. Can I put them on the 
record? So, Chair----
    Senator Blumenthal. Without objection.
    [The information referred to was unavailable at time of 
printing.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
    Mr. Mosseri. If I may, Senator, I am a parent and I can 
understand that parents have concerns about how much screen 
time their kids have. I think that is--I think every parent 
feels that way. I ultimately think that as a parent, that a 
parent knows best what is best for their teens.
    So the appropriate amount of time should be a decision by a 
parent about the specific teen. If one parent wants to set that 
limit at 10 minutes and another parent wants to set that limit 
at 3 hours, who am I to say that they don't know what is best 
for their children?
    Senator Klobuchar. And do you believe your company has 
invested enough in identifying that young children are not on 
the platform, when you know that they are not supposed to be on 
there, and making sure you are registering and using all your 
technology not to just increase your profit, but to make sure 
the kids aren't on there? You think you have done enough?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator. Two things. One, yes, I believe that 
we have invested more than anyone else. But I also believe that 
it is still a very challenging industry wide issue. I think 
there is a number of things that we can do at the industry 
level to better verify age. Specifically, I believe it would be 
much more effective to have age verification at the device 
level. Have a parent who gives their 14 year old a device, tell 
the phone that their child is 14, as opposed to having every 
app, and there is millions of apps out there, trying to verify 
age on their own.
    That should happen at the device level. We understand that 
might not happen or that might take time. And in the meantime, 
we are going to invest heavily in getting more sophisticated in 
how we identify the age of people under the age of 18.
    Senator Klobuchar. And is it true that someone in your 
company said that it was an existential threat if you lost teen 
users?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I don't----
    Senator Klobuchar. Is that true or not? Because we have a 
document that said that.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I assume that is true.
    Senator Klobuchar. OK, so you understand what we are 
thinking up here when it is our job to protect kids, and we 
have parent after parent calling our office, e-mailing us, one 
of the parents likened to me that it was like a water faucet 
going off and it was overflowing and she is sitting there with 
a mop, trying to figure out how to use all of the tools you 
give them that she can't figure out how to use.
    So I think at some point the accountabilities on you guys. 
And that means everything from the privacy bills to expanding 
the child protections online to the competition policy, because 
maybe if we had actual competition in this country instead of 
Meta owning you and owning most of the platforms and most of 
the back and forth for kids, maybe we could have another 
platform developed that would have the privacy protections that 
you have not been able to develop in terms of keeping teens off 
your platform that aren't even old enough to be on there.
    So that is what I think--some food for thought for all of 
you is the opposition to some of the competition policy, 
capitalism, pro-capitalism ideas that we have over in 
judiciary, and I will hand it back to our Chair.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Thanks 
for your work, your leadership on this issue here and on the 
Judiciary committee, where we are on the Subcommittee on 
Antitrust which you chair. I will ask a couple of questions 
because we have a vote ongoing, so a number of my colleagues 
will be returning from the floor. You know your suggestion for 
tech companies to earn Section 230 protection has a certain 
appeal to me since I am the author of the EARN IT Act along 
with Senator Graham.
    It is also the concept that underlies other proposals that 
we have made. But that is not Government regulation. So the 
question is, will you support the UK's children's code that 
Instagram has to obey in the UK? Shouldn't kids in the United 
States have protection as good as the kids in UK enjoy?
    Mr. Mosseri. Absolutely, Senator. A few quick things. One 
is I believe that is the age appropriate design for getting the 
last letter of the acronym. And I believe it is something that 
we support. And we support safety standards for kids 
everywhere, including here in the U.S.
    But also, if you would indulge me for a minute, I would 
like to clarify that my proposal is, yes, an industry body that 
sets standards for youth safety with input from civil society, 
from policymakers, and from parents, but one--that once the 
standards are proposed, it would be approved by policymakers 
like yourself. And I also believe that policymakers or 
regulators should make the decision of whether or not any 
individual company like mine is adhering to those standards. So 
it is not simply----
    Senator Blumenthal. And then enforce them, bring lawsuits, 
seek damages?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we believe that a strong incentive 
would be to tie some of the Section 230 protections to 
adherence, and that could be a decision by regulators.
    Senator Blumenthal. So would the Attorney General of the 
United States or the Attorney General of a state like 
Connecticut, where I was Attorney General, have the power to 
enforce those standards?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we believe in enforcement. 
Specifically how to implement that enforcement is something 
that we would like to work with your office on and other 
offices as well.
    Senator Blumenthal. Well, that is a simple yes or no. 
Enforceability has to be part of your proposal.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I agree, enforceability is incredibly 
important. Without enforcement, it is just words.
    Senator Blumenthal. So you think that the Attorney General 
of the United States could enforce those standards, which means 
they would be written in the statute?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I don't know, because I am not a 
legal expert, if the best way to enforce it would be with the 
Attorney General. But in general, I think it should happen at 
the Federal level, and it is something that I would be happy to 
have my team work with you.
    Senator Blumenthal. Do you favor private rights of action, 
so individuals who were harmed could bring an action against 
Meta?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe that it is important, that 
companies like ours are held accountable to high standards. But 
I believe the most important way or the most effective way of 
doing so is to define industry standards and best practices at 
the Federal level ideally and to seek enforcement, as you 
suggest.
    Senator Blumenthal. These are really yes or no questions. 
They are pretty clear. And I know you are knowledgeable about 
them, so I hope you will answer them more clearly in the 
answers that you provide in writing. I am going to yield to 
Senator Klobuchar.
    Senator Klobuchar. I am just, and I can do this on the 
record, but I did want to, since you denied this idea that the 
marketing budget went from $67 million to $390 million, and 
that much of the budget was allocated to wooing teens, that was 
reported on by the New York Times from internal documents from 
your company. So do you still deny that this is the fact?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, occasionally, there are reports that 
are inaccurate. In this case, I believe that report or that 
article said that the majority of our budget was focused on 
teens, and I know for a fact that that was not the case.
    Senator Klobuchar. Much of the budget. Is that accurate?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I don't remember off the top of my 
head.
    Senator Klobuchar. Then could you give me the number or 
what percentage of the budget was focused on teens? You must, 
as a business, be able to break it down that way, so that would 
be helpful. I will pass that in writing.
    Mr. Mosseri. I would be happy to follow up with you on 
that.
    Senator Klobuchar. OK, thank you.
    Senator Blumenthal. Senator Markey.

               STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD MARKEY, 
                U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS

    Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, thanks 
to your leadership, Mr. Chairman, we have Frances Haugen, who 
has told us quite clearly that 32 percent of teen girls say 
that when they feel bad about their bodies, Instagram makes 
them feel worse. And 6 percent of American teen users trace 
their desire to kill themselves to Instagram. That is your own 
research, Mr. Mosseri.
    Yet, faced with these frightening findings, did Facebook 
back off its efforts to target children? No, just the opposite. 
Facebook pursued plans to launch a version of the platform for 
even younger users, Instagram Kids, and that is appalling. Mr. 
Mosseri, I am glad Facebook has heeded my calls and paused 
these plans. But you have since publicly doubled down on 
Instagram Kids and said it is, ``the right thing to do.''
    Your Statement makes crystal clear that self-regulation is 
not an option for parents and children in the United States of 
America. Instagram sees a dollar sign when it sees kids. 
Parents should see a stop sign when it sees Instagram. Mr. 
Mosseri, do you support my bipartisan legislation with Senator 
Blumenthal, Senator Cassidy, Senator Lummis to update the 
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and give 13, 14, and 
15 year olds control over their data, yes or no?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, it is important that we 
are clear on what the research actually shows. Any loss of life 
to suicide or to anything any other reason is a tragedy. But 
that was--the 6 percent number is inaccurate. It was 1 percent 
of teens who traced their thoughts back. Now, anybody feeling 
worse about themselves is something that we take incredibly 
seriously.
    Now you asked if I support this specific Act that you are 
proposing. I do strongly support Federal regulation, not 
industry regulation, when it comes to youth safety. That said, 
if you move the age from 13 to 16, we know that 14 and 15 year 
olds also want to be online, they also can lie about their age, 
and you are going to make the challenge of age verification 
even more difficult.
    That said, I do believe that 13 isn't a magic number. 
People's needs as they grow up, evolve and we should build age 
appropriate experiences based on children's age.
    Senator Markey. So will you give 13 to 15 year olds the 
right to have all of their information expunged----
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator----
    Senator Markey--that is being gathered online? Do you 
support legislation that would give parents and children the 
ability to have their records expunged?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, you can already delete your account 
and all of your data. You should have that right, whether or 
not you are a teenager or an adult.
    Senator Markey. Would you support national legislation 
mandates that each parent and child be given the ability to 
expunge it? Would you support legislation to do that, make it 
mandatory?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I would support legislation that 
required companies like ours to allow people to delete their 
data, yes.
    Senator Markey. Yes, OK. And just to make that a permanent 
protection that is on the books. Would you support legislation 
to ban targeted ads toward children--both teens and children?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we believe that anyone should always 
have an age appropriate experience on Instagram or in any 
social platform, and that extends to ads. We have different 
rules for ads on Instagram and on Facebook. We only allow 
advertisers to target based on age, based on gender, and based 
on location, and we don't allow certain types of ads, things 
like weight loss ads and dating ads for those under the age of 
18 or alcohol related ads for those under the age of 21.
    Senator Markey. So do you support legislation that would 
ban targeting of ads to children, yes or no?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe it is valuable for ads to 
be relevant, but I do believe that some measures need to be 
taken to keep children safe, which is why I would support 
something in the direction of what we do, which is to limit the 
targeting abilities of platforms.
    Senator Markey. Well, again, yes and no. Mandate or no 
mandate. That is the question. It is exactly why we have to 
make sure that Facebook and Instagram don't reserve the right 
to be able to target these kids. Yes or no?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am trying to be specific about what 
I would support, which is what we build, which is a limited 
targeting options.
    Senator Markey. Would--again, I just keep coming back to 
the fact that your answers are too vague to make it possible 
for us to make these decisions on a legislative way and to do 
so in the very near future, which is what I think we have to 
do. And the chilling truth, unfortunately, continues to just be 
that in the absence of regulation, that big tech has become a 
threat to our democracy, our society, and to the children in 
our country. And let's just be clear, Facebook, which owns 
Instagram, opposes regulation.
    Your idea of regulation is an industry group creating 
standards that your company follows. That is self-regulation. 
That is status quo, and that just won't cut it post the 
revelations that this subcommittee has made public. We do need 
laws. We need laws passed by this body. We have to ban targeted 
ads.
    We have to make sure that that is the law in our country. 
And everything that this subcommittee has unveiled continues to 
make that a necessity, including the testimony that you are 
delivering today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Markey. Senator 
Baldwin.

               STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY BALDWIN, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM WISCONSIN

    Senator Baldwin. So I--sorry, I missed just a segment as I 
went over to vote, and it may have come up because this is work 
I did with Senator Klobuchar, but I joined Senators Klobuchar 
and Capito in writing to Meta for more information about how 
Instagram is combating eating disorder content and the harms it 
brings to users, particularly young people.
    In response to a question about how the platform is working 
to remove this content, Meta indicated that it uses a 
combination, I am quoting now from the letter, ``a combination 
of reports from our community, human review, and artificial 
intelligence'' to find and take down material that violates 
your terms of service.
    The response further notes that there are more than 15,000 
human reviewers on staff. I also met with Frances Haugen, the 
former Facebook employee whose disclosures has spurred this 
series of hearings.
    And when I asked her about what more Instagram could do to 
remove content like this, content glorifying eating disorders, 
she argued that more human review is really the key. According 
to her, many community reports simply are not investigated, and 
artificial intelligence cannot successfully identify patterns, 
networks, and distribution points for problematic content.
    Given that Meta's platforms, according to your own data, 
have 3.6 billion monthly active users, the 15,000 reviewers 
would seem to pale in comparison to the amount of content those 
3.6 billion monthly active users could post.
    Do you agree that more human reviewers will help you move 
more successfully at removing problematic content more quickly? 
And if so, will your company commit to strengthening its 
investment in human review?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, thank you for the question. We have 
over 40,000 people, human reviewers and otherwise, and 
engineers who work on safety and integrity. I mean, we are 
investing about $5 billion this year. And at a high level, 
people are better at nuance, and technology is often better at 
scale. I think the most effective thing we can do not only for 
eating disorder content, which is tragic and a complicated 
societal issue, is to invest more, particularly on the 
technologies that on both, and we are going to continue to do 
so.
    Senator Baldwin. Let me ask, I know that this hearing is 
focused mostly on youth and harmful--but how many, in how many 
countries is Instagram available?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, Instagram is available in over 70 
languages. I unfortunately don't know the number of countries 
off the top of my head, but I would be happy to get back to you 
with that number.
    Senator Baldwin. OK, so 70 languages. That is the point I 
was going to get to. Of those 40,000 or 15,000, which is what 
was in the, I think, the letter response, how many are language 
specific, sort of, monitoring content in each of those 70 
languages?
    Mr. Mosseri. Thank you, Senator. Actually, I misspoke. We 
review content in 70 languages. We have even more languages 
that we, people speak that use Instagram, and we are always 
looking to increase the number that we cover. I apologize for 
the mistake.
    Senator Baldwin. OK, so there are gaps then in terms of 
human review in those areas?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we are always looking to improve, not 
only through language coverage, but through building more 
accurate classifiers, through improving the efficiency of our 
reviewers because it helps keep people more safe.
    Senator Baldwin. I may have some followups with regard to 
that that are more specific, but we also all know that there is 
tremendous social pressure for kids to utilize social media 
platforms and services. And while it is the industry standard 
to block or restrict access to those younger than 13, we know 
that younger teens and tweens are still signing up for social 
media accounts.
    I appreciate that your company decided to press pause on 
its proposed service focused on younger kids earlier this year. 
I understand from your announcement yesterday that Meta is 
looking to introduce new parent controls and other tools for 
Instagram in the coming months.
    But I am concerned about what you are doing today to keep 
kids under 13 off the platform. So tell me a little bit more 
about what you are doing to strengthen age verification and 
why, given the problems of which you are already well aware 
with Instagram and Meta's experience with other services 
focused on younger kids like Messenger Kids, why have you 
waited to institute more parental controls or other steps 
protecting young users?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, on the parental controls question, I 
believe as a parent, it is going to be more responsible to 
develop an age appropriate version of Instagram for those under 
13. But I paused that project, and I took the exact work they 
were building, which was parental controls because no one was 
going to have access unless they had their parent's consent. We 
pivoted that to teens because 13 isn't a magical number. But 
you also asked, how do we verify the age of those under 13? It 
is difficult, given that young people of that age don't have an 
ID in most countries.
    We built what we call classifiers, which try to predict 
age, and then we ask people to prove their age if it looks like 
they might be too young. We look at things like, you know, in 
certain countries, you know, sweet 16 is a cultural norm here 
in the U.S.
    And so we look forward to people say that on someone's 
birthday, does that line up with the age that they said? And we 
get better over time as we get more signals, but it is, I want 
to be very clear, it is not perfect, which is why I believe 
there are better industrywide ways to solve age verification 
because it really is an industry challenge that is not unique 
to Facebook or to Instagram.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you. Chairman Blumenthal will be 
back from his vote in a moment, and we are going to be starting 
our second round. We have some other members that are coming 
for their first round. In the meantime, I want to return to a 
question I asked you about those that are human traffickers, 
sex traffickers, drug traffickers, their utilization of your 
site. Now, I know that in 2020, you sent over 21 million sex 
abuse images on your platform, Facebook sent these to NCMEC.
    So I thank you for doing that. That is the right thing to 
do. I am interested to know whether these child exploitation 
images and reports, if in your report, do you include 
traffickers, and do you include those violations when you make 
that report to NCMEC with these images?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I have to check on that specific and 
get back to you, but we do allow you to report an image or 
photo for violating any of our standards. And you can see how 
well we are at reducing the prevalence of those problems, and 
our consumer----
    Senator Blackburn. Get back to us and let us know if you 
are also reporting these individuals that are posting and 
sharing these sexual abuse images of children. Senator Thune, 
you are recognized for five----

                 STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE, 
                 U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA

    Senator Thune. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for holding 
today's hearing. The lack of transparency from big tech 
companies and the effect these companies have on consumers is 
concerning to the public and rightfully so. Because of the 
secrecy with which big tech protects their algorithms and 
content moderation practices, we have little idea how these 
companies use algorithms to amplify or suppress content, or how 
they can affect the behavior of users without their knowledge.
    Tomorrow, the Communications subcommittee on which I serve 
as Ranking Member will take a closer look at the effects of 
this persuasive technology, and I look forward to hearing from 
the panel about the details of how algorithms and artificial 
intelligence are designed and deployed on Internet platforms to 
manipulate users, as well as the bigger picture about what the 
future might hold for us when corporations and Governments know 
more information about each of us than we know about ourselves.
    We must find ways to improve more transparency and 
accountability in the algorithms deployed on Internet platforms 
that select the content that billions of people see every day. 
Since hearing from the Facebook whistleblower, we now have more 
insight into Instagram and Facebook's troubling practices with 
regard to how it uses algorithms. And in my view, it is long 
past time for Congress to enact legislation to ensure that 
these companies are held accountable.
    There is also bipartisan support for shedding more light on 
the secretive content moderation processes big tech uses and to 
provide consumers more options when engaging with Internet 
platforms, which is why I have introduced two bipartisan bills 
to address these issues, the PACT Act and the Filter Bubble 
Transparency Act.
    And I look forward to, in the time that I have, to 
discussing those issues with you today, Mr. Mosseri. And let me 
start by just asking, does Instagram use persuasive technology, 
meaning technology that is designed to change people's 
attitudes and behaviors?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I have worked on ranking and 
algorithms for years, and that is not how we work. We use 
ranking to try and connect people with the friends that they 
find meaningful, and we use them to try and keep people safe.
    Senator Thune. The Wall Street Journal revealed that 
Instagram often ignored warnings about the harmful impact the 
platform had on users, particularly on girls. With that being 
said, do you believe consumers should be able to use Instagram 
without being manipulated by algorithms that are designed to 
keep them hooked on the platform?
    And would you support giving consumers more options when 
engaging on Instagram's platform. For instance, providing 
consumers a feed that is not being fed to them by algorithms or 
that is in a chronological order?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe it is important that people 
have control over their experience. So yes, I would support 
giving people the option to have a chronological feed.
    Senator Thune. On the issue of Section 230 reform, Senator 
Schatz and I have introduced legislation that would, among 
other things, require platforms like Instagram to provide for 
more due process to users regarding their moderation and 
censorship practices, and submit public transparency reports 
about content that has been removed or de-emphasized. Do you 
believe this provision would help build trust with Instagram's 
users?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we believe in more transparency and 
accountability, and we believe in more control. That is why we 
are currently working on a version of a chronological feed that 
we hope to launch next year. That is why we provide a number of 
ways for you to see how content moderation works on the 
platform.
    So, for instance, today you can go to the account center. I 
believe it is called account status and see any of your content 
that has been taken down. And that is why we are working on 
more ways to give people more control over their experience and 
create more transparency about how Instagram works.
    Senator Thune. Do you believe that algorithm explanation or 
algorithm transparency are appropriate policy responses?
    Mr. Mosseri. I believe very strongly in algorithmic 
transparency. I think it would be hard for you to find someone 
who has tried as much to explain how ranking works. There is a 
number of ways to be transparent. I think in some cases, the 
most effective is to look at the output of algorithms like we 
do in our community guidelines enforcement report. In other 
cases, it is more appropriate to explain how they work instead 
of releasing millions of lines of code.
    Senator Thune. And could you just elaborate a little bit on 
when you talk about creating and giving consumers a feed that 
is not being fed to them by an algorithm or that is in a 
chronological order? You said that you are going to implement 
that policy beginning next year. How did you come to that 
decision, and sort of more specifically, what the dates for 
that implementation, and maybe if you could elaborate a little 
bit on just exactly what that might look like?
    Mr. Mosseri. Absolutely, Senator. So we have been focused 
for a few years now on how to give people more control over 
their experience. One idea that we have experimented with 
publicly is called favorites, where you can pick a subset of 
people you want to have show up at the top of feed. Another we 
have been working on for months now is a chronological version 
of Instagram. I wish I had a specific month to tell you right 
now, but right now we are targeting the first quarter of next 
year
    Senator Thune. OK. And we would like to take what you are 
proposing to do and codify it. And that is what the Filter 
Bubble Act does. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Blackburn. Senator Lujan, you are recognized.

               STATEMENT OF HON. BEN RAY LUJAN, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

    Senator Lujan. Thank you very much, Chair Blackburn, and 
want to thank everyone for calling this important hearing as 
well to our Chair and to our Ranking Member. Tomorrow, I will 
also be convening a hearing titled, disrupting dangerous 
algorithms, addressing the harms of persuasive technology in 
the Communications, Media, and Broadband subcommittee, where we 
will discuss legislative solutions to online amplification of 
content that spreads misinformation, threatens the mental and 
physical well-being of our children, and promotes extremism.
    One of the lines of questions that I had today based on 
questions that came before from other colleagues earlier in 
this important hearing lies around data retention and deletion, 
and I think there was a line of questioning, from one of my 
colleagues as well. Does Instagram have in place practices to 
abide by the principle of data minimization, especially for 
sensitive personal information?
    Mr. Mosseri. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Lujan. Can you provide those to the Committee?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I would be happy to follow up with 
that.
    Senator Lujan. That is a yes?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, yes, I will get the exact details on 
what we do and follow up with the Committee.
    Senator Lujan. Appreciate that. How long does Instagram 
store data related to what websites users visit and what 
internal links they click from inside the app?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I apologize. I do not know that 
offhand, but again, I would be happy to get back to you with 
the specifics there.
    Senator Lujan. Do you know how long Instagram stores 
location information for a user?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, if you post a photo that has a 
location, it will say that location on that photo, so that will 
be stored for as long as that photo is up. In other cases, I 
assume we have retention policies that are quite short. We will 
get back to you with the specifics, but it will depend on the 
usage of location data.
    Senator Lujan. When was the last time Instagram reviewed 
and updated its data decision, deletion and retention policies?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we operate as one company, so would 
be for both Instagram and Facebook, so we wouldn't--there 
wouldn't be a specific retention policy for Instagram. I don't 
know the last time the policies were specifically updated, but 
I can tell you that we are constantly working on privacy, 
making sure that we can do more to empower people to protect 
their own data, making sure that we are compliant with the 
increasing number of privacy regulations around the world.
    Senator Lujan. Would you support Federal policy legislation 
that enforces data retention limits and data deletion 
requirements?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, not only would we support that, but 
we believe it is important for there to be privacy regulation 
here in the U.S. and that is something that we have been very 
public about for years now.
    Senator Lujan. When users request to download their data 
from Instagram, are users given all information that the 
company holds on them, including assumptions that the company 
has about them based on their behavior?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, when you download your data, we give 
you everything that is associated with you as far as I know, 
but I want to make sure I double check that. There are certain 
instances where--actually I can't think of any exceptions, but 
I will get back to you.
    Senator Lujan. So the other way that I would ask that 
question and maybe it requires follow up is, is there any 
information that Instagram does not share with users when they 
request their data?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we do our best to share all the data, 
all your data when you asked to download your data. As we add 
new features, we add them to what we call download your data to 
make sure that you have all the data.
    Senator Lujan. Instagram has the option for users to 
request to delete their data that Instagram holds. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Mosseri. Yes. And if you delete your account, you can 
delete your data if you request it.
    Senator Lujan. Is there any data that Instagram holds from 
a user after a user deletes their information?
    Mr. Mosseri. Not that I know of Senator, no.
    Senator Lujan. Is that something you can get back to me on 
as well?
    Mr. Mosseri. Absolutely. But I can also assure you that we 
do all we can to delete all your data, if you ask us to. To do 
otherwise would be incredibly problematic.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. There was a question that 
I asked Mr. Zuckerberg back in 2017 about Facebook's collection 
behavior about non-users, to which he responded to me that 
Facebook did not collect non-user information. Facebook, about 
a week later released a correction to that that Mr. Zuckerberg 
must have been mistaken or had a lapse in how he responded to 
that particular question.
    But nonetheless, I really want to get to the bottom of 
that, especially with the rampant collection of data from 
individuals as well. And then the last question, Madam Chair 
that I will submit into the record because I am out of time now 
is the work that has to be done in non-English language 
disinformation and misinformation. It is a huge problem. I 
think it is important for Facebook, for Instagram, and Meta, 
and I get confused with which term I should be using here with 
rebranding. I guess I am not so good with it, but----
    Mr. Mosseri. I am comfortable with any term you would 
prefer.
    Senator Lujan [continuing]. That we are able to get 
disaggregated data as we requested in this hearing from a 
Facebook witness, and we still have not been responded to. And 
I think it is very important for the Committee's wishes to be 
respected, which are done in a bipartisan way.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate that point. Since we 
talked about that the other day, I have started to look into 
that. There are a number of ways we might be able to break out 
data around our Community Standards Enforcement policy.
    It is possible--one possibility is what language the 
content is in, another possibility is what language the person 
who sees that content speaks, another possibility is what 
country. And so we are going to get back to you on what we 
think is the most efficient and responsible thing we can do in 
this space. And I will personally make sure that we do that and 
get back to you promptly.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Lujan. Senator Lee.

                  STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LEE, 
                     U.S. SENATOR FROM UTAH

    Senator Lee. Mr. Mosseri, does Instagram advocate weight 
loss or plastic surgery for teenage girls under the age of 18?
    Mr. Mosseri. Sorry, Senator, I apologize, I missed the 
second word on the question. Does what--?
    Senator Lee. Does Instagram advocate for, does it recommend 
weight loss or plastic surgery for girls under the age of 18?
    Mr. Mosseri. Absolutely not. We don't recommend an eating 
disorder related content to people of any age.
    Senator Lee. Very glad to hear that. I beg to differ here. 
Leading up to this hearing, I have heard about a lot of 
complaints from people across Utah and elsewhere who have told 
me about inappropriate content available through the explore 
page on Instagram, available specifically to children. And so I 
was encouraged to look into it myself. So I had my staff create 
a fictitious 13 year old account for a fictitious 13 year old 
girl.
    The explore page yielded fairly benign results at first 
when all we did was create the account, knowing that it was a 
13-year-old girl. But Instagram also provided that same account 
for this fake 13-year-old that included a list of 
recommendations of accounts that we should follow, including 
multiple celebrities and influencers. So we followed the first 
account that was recommended by Instagram, which happened to be 
a very famous female celebrity. Now, after following that 
account, we went back to the explore page and the content 
quickly changed.
    You see right at first, all that came up when we opened up 
the account were some fairly benign hairstyling videos. But 
that is not what we saw after we followed this account, the 
account that was recommended by Instagram itself, and it 
expanded into all sorts of stuff, including content that was 
full of unrealistic standards for women, including plastic 
surgery and commentary on women's height, content that could be 
detrimental to the self-image of any 13-year-old girl.
    And if you need any kind of evidence on the kinds of harms 
that this can produce, you can look to the report that I 
recently issued through my Joint Economic committee team, 
specifically on this topic last week.
    So, Mr. Mossier, why did following Instagram's top 
recommended account for a 13-year-old girl cause our explore 
page to go from showing really innocuous things like 
hairstyling videos to content that promotes body dysmorphia, 
the sexualization of women, and content otherwise unsuitable 
for a 13 year old girl. What happened?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, eating disorder related content, or 
eating disorders more broadly are very complicated and 
difficult issues in society. Without----
    Senator Lee. And they are complicated enough without a 
social media site recommending it.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I have personally spoken to teens in 
multiple countries around the world that use Instagram to get 
support when suffering from things like eating disorders.
    We absolutely do not want any content that promotes eating 
disorders on our platform. We do our best to remove it. I 
believe, and I will get back to the specifics of that, it is 
roughly 5 in every 10,000 things viewed. And my responsibility, 
as the Head of Instagram, is to get to that number to as close 
to zero as possible.
    But we believe that every company, Snapchat, TikTok, 
YouTube should be public like we are about exactly what the 
prevalence of important content problems are on our platform.
    Senator Lee. Right. I get that. And I can only take your 
word for it here. I understand what you are saying about the 
overall numbers. That is not how it appeared on this account. 
That is not how it happened at all. It was hairstyling videos 
and innocuous stuff 1 minute. The next minute, after we 
followed a famous female celebrity, it changed, and it went 
dark fast. It was not 5 in 1,000 or 5 in 10,000.
    It was rampant. The thing that gets me is, what changed was 
following this female celebrity account, and that female 
celebrity account was recommended to this 13-year-old girl. So 
why are you recommending that somebody follow a site with the 
understanding that by doing that, you are exposing that girl to 
all sorts of other things that are not suitable for any child?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question because it 
is an incredibly important and difficult space. If we 
recommended something that we shouldn't have, I am accountable 
for that. I am the Head of Instagram. But you said a second 
ago, you have to take my word for it, and I don't believe you 
should.
    Our first Community Standards Enforcement Report, sorry, we 
have been doing it for years, but this next quarter, this 
quarter we are in right now, is going to be independently 
audited by Ernst & Young, and we are committed to doing 
independent audits going forward.
    Senator Lee. That is great, and I have independently 
audited myself. And what I am saying to you is I will take your 
word for it as to the 5 in 1,000, 5 in 10,000 point. What I am 
saying is it was decidedly not 5 in 1,000 or 5 in 10,000 on 
this page for this for poor unsuspecting, albeit fake, 13-year-
old girl.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator----
    Senator Lee. That is a concern. Look, I am running out of 
time, but I am also running out of patience from a company that 
has told us over and over and over again, we are so concerned 
about your children, we are so concerned, we are commissioning 
a blue ribbon study to be done or we are doing a review and 
stuff like this is still happening.
    Meanwhile, the Tech Transparency Project, TTP recently 
conducted another experiment demonstrated how miners can use 
their instrument Instagram accounts to search for prescription 
and illicit drugs and connect with drug dealers. In fact, 
according to TTP, it only took two clicks, two clicks to find 
drug dealers on that platform. So, why are children's accounts 
even allowed to search for drug content to begin with, much 
less allowed to do so in a way that leads them to a drug dealer 
in two clicks?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, accounts selling drugs or any other 
regulated goods are not allowed on the platform.
    Senator Lee. Apparently they are.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, I don't think you can 
take one or two examples and indicate that that is indicative 
of what happens in the platform more broadly, which is why--and 
I want to be clear----
    Senator Lee. No, but it only took two clicks.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator. I am not familiar with that specific 
report. I am more than happy to look into it. I do want to be 
clear though, because I have been talking about the Community 
Standards Enforcement Report a lot, and I know it sounds like 
numbers. And I know behind every one of those numbers is a 
person who is experiencing something difficult.
    So I don't want to sound callous in any way. So if there is 
room for us to improve, I embrace that. That is why we invest 
more than I believe anybody else, $5 billion this year, over 
40,000 people. That is why we believe in industry standards and 
industry accountability.
    And that is why we are calling on the entire industry, 
YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, to come together to set industry 
standards that are approved by regulators like here in the U.S. 
in order to make the Internet more safer for not only kids 
online, but for everyone.
    Senator Lee. There is a scene from the movie Monty Python 
and the Holy Grail. There is a big fight. Somebody concludes 
the discussion by saying, ``look, let's not bicker and argue 
about who killed who here.'' I think we have to reach the point 
where we realize some real bad stuff is happening, and you are 
the new tobacco, whether you like it or not, and you have got 
to stop selling the tobacco, in quotation marks, to kids. Don't 
let them have it, don't give it to them. Thank you.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Lee. Senator Sullivan.

                STATEMENT OF HON. DAN SULLIVAN, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
for holding this important hearing and a series of hearings 
that you and the ranking member have been holding. Mr. Mosseri, 
have you read the Surgeon General's report that he issued 
yesterday, protecting youth mental health?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I have started to read it, I haven't 
quite finished it from where my read so far. It makes it clear 
that teens in this country are struggling,----
    Senator Sullivan. Let me, I will get into it a little bit.
    Mr. Mosseri. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Sullivan. I agree. A very sobering reading. It 
mentions in 2021, emergency room visits for suicide attempts by 
adolescent girls are 51 percent, 51 percent. I mean, that is 
just shocking. And the surgeon general said our obligation is 
to act. It is not just medical; it is moral.
    So, the way I have read it, it is kind of a witch's brew of 
two things that are driving so much of these horrendous 
statistics related to mental health and suicide. It has been 
the pandemic in the negative impacts of social media. That is 
in the report. One of the recommendations from the surgeon 
general is limiting social media usage. Do you agree with that?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I will answer that question, but 
first, I want to be clear that I don't believe the research 
shows that social media is driving the rise in suicides.
    Senator Sullivan. Wait, but why do you think the Surgeon 
General of the United States who just issued a 53-page report 
on mental health and teen suicides, said that we should limit 
social media to help get out of this crisis?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, from what I have read of the surgeon 
general's report so far, it is about a number of different 
issues, not just suicides. So just to make a connection between 
one problem that he talks about and one of the recommendations 
he makes I think is a bit of a leap.
    Senator Sullivan. Let me ask my question again. The Surgeon 
General of the United States makes his recommendations to 
address what clearly is a mental health crisis for teenagers, 
particularly teenage girls in America. One of his 
recommendations is to limit social media usage. So do you agree 
with him?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, two things. One is----
    Senator Sullivan. Answer the question.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator. I believe parents should be able to 
set limits for their children because I believe a parent knows 
best, which is why we have developed or why we are currently 
developing parental controls that let parents not only see how 
much time their teens spend on Instagram but set limits. I 
also----
    Senator Sullivan. Let me just add, I mean this is a really 
important question because if we have experts saying we need to 
limit social media usage, which is what the surgeon general 
just said yesterday, to help address mental health issues, does 
that go against the business model of Instagram or Facebook or 
Meta? Isn't your business model to get more eyeballs for a 
longer time on social media? Isn't that what you are about?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, if people don't feel good about the 
time that they spend on our platform, if for any other reason 
people want to spend less time on our platform, I have to 
believe that it is better for our business over the long run.
    Senator Sullivan. Do you make more money when people spend 
more time on your platform or less?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, on average, we make more money when 
people spend more time on our platform because we are an 
advertising business.
    Senator Sullivan. Right. So, but you agree with the surgeon 
general that people should limit their social media usage. My 
point is they seem to be in direct contradiction with each 
other: what the surgeon general is saying, we need to better 
the health of our young Americans and what your basic business 
model proposition is. They seem to be actually colliding with 
each other.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, I disagree. I think the 
important thing is to distinguish between the short term and 
the long term. Over the long run, it has to be better for us as 
a business for people to feel good about the time that they 
spend on our platform. It has to be better for us as business, 
for parents to not only have a meaningful amount of control but 
be able to exercise their control over how much time their 
teens spend on our platform. And so we take a very long view on 
this, which is why----
    Senator Sullivan. Do you have internal data relating to 
mental health and suicide and usage on your platform or 
Facebook or Meta?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we do research to make Instagram 
better and safer. And as a parent, that is exactly what I would 
want. I believe we lead the industry and do more than anyone 
else on suicide.
    Senator Sullivan. Yes. You are not answering my question. 
Just answer--do you have an internal data related to the issue 
of teen suicide and usage of your platform?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am not sure I am understand your 
question specifically, but yes, we do research and we talk to 
third party experts and academics about difficult issues like 
suicide, which is inspired work like not allowing any content 
that talks about the methods of suicide, connecting people who 
seek out that type of content with expert backed resources, and 
if someone looks like they are at risk of hurting themselves, 
proactively reaching to local emergency services on their 
behalf, not only here in the U.S., but in a number of countries 
around the world.
    Senator Sullivan. Mr. Chairman, I am just--one final 
question. Can I ask very quickly, I looked into a little bit of 
this issue of your announcement on Instagram for kids and just 
that phrase kind of makes me nervous. It sounds like a gateway 
drug to more usage. Why did you put a pause on that and are you 
going to permanently pause that? And do you worry that you are 
going to get now kids hooked on more usage with Instagram for 
Kids?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, the idea is trying to solve a 
problem. We know that 10 to 12 year olds are online. Your 
average age, I believe when you get a cell phone in this 
country, is currently 11 or 10. We know that they want to be on 
top of things like Instagram, and Instagram, quite frankly, 
wasn't designed for them.
    So the idea was to give parents the option to give their 
child an age appropriate version of Instagram, where they could 
control not only how much time that they spent, but who they 
could interact with and what they could see. It was always 
going to be a parent's decision.
    Now I personally, as the Head of Instagram, am responsible 
for Instagram, and I decided to pause that project so that we 
could take more time to speak to parents, experts, and to 
policymakers to make sure that we get it right.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Sullivan. Senator Young 
by WebEx.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. TODD YOUNG, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA

    Senator Young. Thank you, Chairman. Welcome Mr. Mosseri. In 
Ms. Haugen's testimony, she discussed how Instagram generates 
self-harm and self-hate, especially for vulnerable groups like 
teenage girls. Now I happen to have three young daughters and 
two teenage daughters, and this issue hits home to me, but it 
hits home to a lot of Americans. So you are here today, you are 
the Head of Instagram, and you have an opportunity to tell your 
side of the story.
    And I do believe that if we are not receiving some 
constructive, actionable, and bold measures to deal with what 
is popularly believed to be a serious and significant public 
health issue, Congress will act because our constituents insist 
that we act. We have held a lot of hearings now. We have done 
our best to educate ourselves. But frankly, since you run the 
platform, since you know the technology, since you spend so 
much time working on these matters, you can really help us.
    If you don't, we are going to feel an imperative to act. So 
that is just the reality of it. So with that said, with that 
foundation laid, do you believe there are any short-term or 
long-term consequences of body image or other issues on your 
platform?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question. The 
research that we have found shows that many teens use Instagram 
to get support when suffering from issues like body image 
issues. For 11 out of 12 issues for teenage girls, and for 12 
out of 12, issues like body image, anxiety, and depression, we 
found more teens who are struggling find that Instagram made 
things better than worse.
    The one exception was body image for teenage girls, which 
is why I personally--actually before we even did this research, 
started the social comparison team that researchers inspired 
ideas like Take a Break, which launched this week, and nudges, 
which we are currently working on, which encourages you to 
switch topics if you spend too much time in any one topic. I am 
not here to say that there is only one perfect solution, but 
just to give an update on what the research says and what we 
are doing to make Instagram safer.
    Senator Young. Got it. I am familiar with nudges. I am 
somewhat familiar with behavioral science, I know that is 
something that can be harnessed by our tech community to 
generate traffic. What is engagement based ranking, Mr. 
Mosseri?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question. I have 
worked on ranking and algorithms for years. That term is often 
used to describe trying to connect people with content that 
they find interesting. So what we do when you open up 
Instagram, is we look at all of the posts from all of the 
people that you or the accounts that you follow, and we try and 
show you the one that you find the most relevant, and we try to 
make sure to take out anything that might be against our 
community guidelines in order to keep people safe. At a high 
level, that is usually what people refer to when they say 
engagement based ranking to the best of my knowledge.
    Senator Young. So is there a behavioral bias for teenage 
girls to look disproportionately at content that adversely 
impacts their self-image?
    Mr. Mosseri. Not that I know of, Senator. I do think that 
it is important that teens don't have negative experiences on 
our platform. I do think it is important that we try to 
understand the issue that you are raising, which I appreciate, 
which is negative social comparison or body image social 
comparison. And we are trying to understand how we can best 
help and support those who might be struggling.
    Senator Young. So there is no negativity bias, just as 
adults have a negative news bias, which is why so much of the 
news and current events coverage online can be so caustic and 
so corrosive to our public discourse because so often people 
marinate in the negative. But there is no similar bias that you 
have discovered, and I want to hear from one from any of your 
internal experts pertaining to negative self-image for teenage 
girls.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator--sorry to interrupt you, Senator. 
Senator, I appreciate the question. I think it is important to 
call out that social media allows you to connect with anyone 
you are interested.
    And in a world where the definition of beauty here in the 
United States used to be very limited and very focused on a 
very unrealistic definition of beauty, social media platforms 
like Instagram have allowed, or not allowed, but have helped 
important movements like body positivity to flourish so that if 
you are a teenage girl of color or if you are a plus size 
teenage girl, you can see models of color, plus size models.
    It has helped diversify the definitions of beauty, and that 
is something that we think is incredibly important. I don't 
know of any specific bias, to answer your question very 
directly, but I want to call out that we help people reach a 
more diverse set of not only definitions of beauty, but points 
of view and perspectives.
    Senator Young. Do you have behavioral scientists who work 
internal to Instagram?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we have data scientists who try and 
understand how people use the platform in order to make 
Instagram both better and safer.
    Senator Young. And they would inform you, I presume---but I 
don't want to presume, I want to get you on the record. They 
would be informing you if they ever discovered a negativity 
bias in the research or in the behaviors of your user community 
as it relates to teenage girls and self-harm or self-hate, 
right?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I expect my today to data scientists 
as I expect my researchers to keep me abreast of any important 
developments with regards not only to safety but to Instagram 
and the industry more broadly.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Young.
    Senator Young. Thank you.
    Senator Blumenthal. Senator Lummis.

               STATEMENT OF HON. CYNTHIA LUMMIS, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING

    Senator Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Companies like 
Instagram are often designing technology to maximize the 
collection of our data and subsequently sell visibility into 
its users private lives and interests.
    That is why when a company called Signal bought 
advertisements designed to show us the information it collects 
and sells about us, those ads were banned by Instagram's parent 
company. It is the black box of highly secretive algorithmic 
systems that companies like Instagram deploy that operate 
largely undetected by the user and which allow them to continue 
to operate free of meaningful scrutiny. This is not an open 
source system.
    Sunlight disinfects and Congress must not scroll past this 
critical moment without properly addressing the harms young 
people are encountering on these platforms. Mr. Mosseri, thank 
you for being here. In your testimony, you stated that 
Instagram has limited advertisers' options for serving ads to 
people under 18 to age, gender, and location.
    But your testimony neglects to mention that any similar 
prohibition on Instagram's own machine learning ad delivery 
system. Does Instagram's machine learning ad delivery system 
target ads to children using factors other than age, gender, 
and location?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question. There is 
one ads delivery system both for Instagram and for Facebook. We 
only allow advertisers to target those under 18 based on age, 
gender, and location, and overall, the system also uses 
activity that teens use within the app to make sure that ads 
are relevant to teens.
    Senator Lummis. OK, so you don't limit yourselves. You hold 
yourselves to a lower standard than your advertisers?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we do limit ourselves and that we 
don't use any off-platform data, but we do also use activity in 
the apps to make sure that ads are relevant. For instance, if I 
am not interested in a specific band because it is around the 
part of the country or because I don't like that type of music, 
it doesn't make sense for me to see that type of band.
    Senator Lummis. So, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent 
to enter into the record a report from Fair Play that shows 
Meta is still using an AI delivery system to target ads at 
children.
    Senator Blumenthal. Without objection.
    [The information referred to was unavailable at time of 
printing.]
    Senator Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Your Head of 
Safety and well-being, Vaishnavi J., recently stated that ``any 
one piece of content is unlikely to make you feel good or bad 
or negative about yourself. It is really when you are viewing, 
say 20 minutes of that content or multiple pieces of that 
content in rapid succession that may have a negative impact on 
how you feel.''
    So to me, her Statement says that your company knows the 
time spent on the platform increases the likelihood of real 
world negative impacts. So how do you square a business model 
that prioritizes user time and engagement with knowing there is 
a direct correlation between time and harm?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, using our platform more 
will increase any affect, whether it is positive or negative. 
We try and connect people with their friends, we try to help 
them explore their interests, we even try to help them start 
new businesses. But if people don't feel good about the time 
that they spend on our platform, that is something I personally 
take seriously and why we build things like daily limits, and 
why we are currently working on parental controls that are 
focused on time.
    Senator Lummis. Does Instagram make money from ads that are 
seen when placed next to highly viewed and viral but also 
harmful content that violates the rules of your platform?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we don't allow content that violates 
our rules on the platform. We release publicly how effective we 
are at removing that content, and we receive revenue based on 
ads shown.
    Senator Lummis. OK, so is the money returned to the 
advertisers then?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, not that I know of, no.
    Senator Lummis. Is it your position that Instagram will 
always comply with the laws of the country in which it 
operates?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we are going to do our best to always 
comply with the law.
    Senator Lummis. OK. Will you commit to releasing those 
guidelines to members of this committee?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, apologies, which guidelines?
    Senator Lummis. It would be guidelines related to how you 
comply. So let me give you an example. If an authoritarian 
regime submitted a lawful request for your platform to censor 
political dissidents, would you comply? And if not, what are 
your guidelines on something like that? Here's--let me give you 
some real world examples. If a Government, let's say Uganda, 
criminalizes homosexuality. And if the Government submitted a 
lawful request for a data on users that are members of the LGBT 
community, would Instagram comply?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we try and use our best judgment in 
order to keep people safe. I also believe that transparency on 
this specific issue is incredibly important. I will double 
check and get back to your office, but I believe we also are 
public about incoming requests we get at a high level.
    Senator Lummis. So one of the reasons that I am concerned 
about the fact that this is sort of secretive data collection 
based on a non-open source algorithm is because it gives you 
that veil of secrecy. People don't know what information is 
being collected about them.
    Yet, if a hostile Government is able to identify people 
like women who are learning against the law, being educated 
against the law, or someone who is homosexual in a Government 
where homosexuality is punishable by death, and there are 
Governments that do this, if you turn over that data and it is 
collected by artificial intelligence, that artificial 
intelligence is not going to discern that they are putting a 
human being in danger. These platform--artificial intelligence, 
when not guided and not open sourced, can be a real problem. 
Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator. Senator Cantwell.

               STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON

    The Chair. Thank you, Chairman Blumenthal, and thank you to 
you and Senator Blackburn for this fabulous hearing. I know we 
have had great attendance from members. I am so impressed by 
the questions that all our colleagues have been asking, so I 
hope it will lead us to some good legislative solutions. And 
appreciate Mr. Mosseri--is that the right way to saying, 
Mosseri?
    Mr. Mosseri. That is just great.
    The Chair. OK, for being here today. Obviously a big new 
day on the job. So I wanted to ask you specifically about 
privacy violations. Do you believe that claims of privacy 
violations by kids should go to arbitration? I mean, that is, 
do you believe that when people are signing up for your service 
when their 14 year olds, they understand that they are giving 
away their rights when they sign up to your service?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, I disagree with the 
characterization that anyone gives away their rights when they 
sign up for our service. I think people--I think privacy is 
incredibly important and we do the best we can, and we invest a 
lot of resources in making sure we respect people's privacy.
    The Chair. So if a child has suffered harm of the magnitude 
and they tried to try to get those issues addressed, do you 
think there should be an arbitration?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am not sure I understand the exact 
hypothetical, but I do believe if a child is at risk 
specifically of hurting themselves----
    The Chair. No, one of my constituents was working with a 
mother whose 14 year old daughter was groomed by adults on 
Instagram, ultimately was lured into sex trafficking and taken 
across State lines for prostitution. Under Instagram's terms of 
service, Instagram can argue that a child's only recourse 
against Instagram's failure to provide a safe environment would 
be an arbitration, with no open court, no discovery, no judge, 
no jury, no appeal. So I am asking you what you think about 
when real harm is created against children and what should be 
the process?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, that story is terrifying. We don't 
allow child or human trafficking of any kind. We try to be as 
public as we can about how well we do on difficult problems 
like that one. And we believe that we should be---there should 
be industry standards, there should be industry wide 
accountability, but the best way to do that is Federal 
legislation, which is specifically what I am proposing today.
    The Chair. On this point--what we are trying to get at is 
that when users, in this case particularly young children, are 
signing up for service, what they are signing up to and a check 
mark is that you are signing up to binding arbitration with the 
company. So if there is a dispute about something that 
happened, and yes, we have been considering privacy 
legislation, our colleagues here have been trying to protect 
young children in other ways, and we have certainly found some 
very egregious situations of late, the only recourse they have 
is to go into binding arbitration with you as a company.
    And we are saying when there is something as egregious as a 
privacy violation, that they should have other recourse. I am 
just simply asking you whether you believe they should have 
other recourse.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question. I believe 
the most responsible approach in this area more broadly, not 
only for privacy but for safety, is Federal regulation here in 
the U.S.
    The Chair. Do you think everybody has to go through you or 
one of your other software ask companies to get redress? Do you 
think that the only redress consumers should have is through 
binding arbitration with the company?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe that whatever the law 
states should apply to all companies like ours equally.
    The Chair. I am asking you what you think as a company?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am not familiar with the specific--
--
    The Chair. OK, I am going to ask you for the record, and 
then that way you will get a little more time and you can 
consider it. But these are serious issues about the fact that 
serious issues are happening to children and the only redress 
they have is to go into binding arbitration with you.
    And I think while that might be like, hey, I don't like 
your service or something happened or you overcharged me or 
this happened, that might be great for binding arbitration, but 
serious harm to people I don't think should be sent to binding 
arbitration. OK, back to the advertising question if we could 
for a second.
    My colleagues have done a really good job of asking about 
this, but obviously people have been talking about the ability 
to make money off of specific content, whether in the Facebook 
that was described as potential reach metric. I think we have 
been talking about that, right, people have been discussing 
that. Are you aware of inaccuracies in the potential reach 
metric?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am not aware of any specific 
inaccuracies, but we do our best we can to make sure 
advertisers understand reach before they spend using tools like 
that.
    The Chair. Do you think that there is hate speech that is 
not taken down by--that is included in that? Would you agree 
that informing advertisers in the public, how much hate speech 
there is, or if it is taken down or not taken down?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, I believe the potential 
reach tool allows you to get a sense of how many people you 
will reach, which is different than how much content on hate 
speech content specifically. In our Community Standards 
Enforcement Report, you can see that I believe 3 in 10,000 
pieces of content seen qualify as hate speech by our 
definition.
    The Chair. Do you think that advertising can be inaccurate, 
or misleading based on certain metrics?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, as an advertising business, I believe 
it is in our interest to be as accurate as possible. I think 
whenever we make mistakes, we know that undermines our 
credibility and advertising businesses are based on trust.
    The Chair. Right. And they are also based on being truthful 
to your advertisers. And so what I am getting at is Ms. Haugen 
came to testify before the Committee. She is saying that 
Facebook purposely made a decision to keep up metrics that 
drove more traffic, even though she knew that they--that the 
company knew that it included things that were related to hate 
speech. That that certainly motivated more traffic. And when 
presented with the information, the company and various members 
of the company decided to continue using that metric.
    And so what I am saying, there could be instances where 
Instagram has also continued to have advertisers not fully 
aware. So do you believe advertisers should be aware if there 
was any content that was related to hate speech that they 
should be aware that that metric--that they should be aware of 
what content they are being served with?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe advertisers should have 
access to data about how much hate speech there is on the 
platform, just like everyone should be have access to that kind 
of data. I am not--I don't believe, actually I am not familiar 
with what you are specifically referencing with regard to her 
testimony, but it doesn't line up with any of my experience 
through my 13 years here at the company that we would 
intentionally mislead advertisers. That would be a gross 
violation of trust, and it would inevitably come out and 
undermine our credibility.
    The Chair. So you don't think there is any deceptive 
practices with advertisers that you are involved in at 
Instagram?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, not only do I not believe that, I 
think that would be----
    The Chair. Do you think advertisers know everything about 
your algorithm and what it is attached to in giving them page 
views and information?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe deeply in transparency. I 
have spent an immense amount of time over the years not only 
trying to be transparent about how our algorithms work, but 
also investing in making sure we are transparent about how much 
problematic content is on the platform. And I believe you can 
see that in our Community Standards Report, and I believe other 
companies like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube should do the 
same.
    The Chair. I see my time is way over, Mr. Chairman, but I 
am going to ask you questions for the record on this as well, 
because the point is if companies are involved in deceptive 
practices with advertisers and they haven't told them how they 
are artificially increasing their traffic and it is related to 
something that the advertisers aren't aware of, that is a 
deceptive practice. So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Senator Cantwell. Thanks for 
your excellent work on this issue and your help and support in 
these hearings. Senator Cruz.

                  STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM TEXAS

    Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mosseri, 
welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for testifying 
before the Committee and thank you for being here in person. As 
you are aware, I and many members of this committee have had 
significant concerns about Instagram's practices and Facebook's 
practices and big tech more broadly. In September 2021, The 
Wall Street Journal published a series of investigative 
articles titled ``Facebook Files.''
    And as you know, the Wall Street Journal reported that 
researchers inside of Instagram found that 32 percent of teen 
girls using the product felt that Instagram made them feel bad 
about their bodies. The )Wall Street Journal further reported 
that 13 percent of British users and 6 percent of American 
users trace their desire to kill themselves to Instagram. Now, 
those are deeply troubling conclusions. Are you familiar with 
the research that was cited by The Wall Street Journal?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, yes, but if we are going to have a 
conversation about the research, I think we need to be clear 
about what it actually says. It actually showed that one out of 
three girls who suffer from body image issues find that 
Instagram makes things worse. And that came from a slide with 
23 other statistics where more teens found that Instagram made 
things better. Now we have--doesn't mean it is not serious. And 
on suicide, it was actually, and any one life loss to suicide 
is an immense tragedy, but on suicide, it was 1 percent who 
trace their thoughts back to Instagram. And I think it is 
important that we are clear about what the research says.
    Senator Cruz. So I am glad to see that we found some common 
ground. You just said twice there, it is important for us to be 
clear what the research said. I agree. At prior hearings, I 
have asked your colleagues repeatedly for copies of the 
research, and to my knowledge, you have refused to produce it. 
Will you commit now to produce the research to this committee 
so we can, as you just said, be clear about what the research 
says?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I really appreciate this question 
because it is incredibly important that we are transparent 
about research. I can commit personally to doing all I can to 
release the data behind the research. The two challenges that I 
need to let you know of are one, privacy in certain cases, and 
two, in often cases we do not have the data anymore due to our 
data retention policies.
    But given that I can also commit to you that we will 
provide meaningful access to data, to third party researchers 
outside the company so that they can draw their own conclusions 
and design their own studies to understand the effects of not 
only Instagram or Facebook on well-being, and I think other 
companies should do the same.
    Senator Cruz. In what format was this research communicated 
to you? You just referenced a slide that had bullet points. I 
would love to see that slide. You criticize this committee for 
not appreciating the full contents of the research when you 
haven't given us the research. In what form did this research 
come to you? Was it a PowerPoint presentation? How was it 
memorialized and presented to you?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, there are two forms that the research 
comes in. I believe the most important is the data because that 
allows any researcher, and I am committed to making sure 
external researchers outside the company can do research and 
have access to that to draw their own conclusions, and then 
presentations like PowerPoint slides.
    And the specific of that slide, we have actually made that 
slide public, but I believe the most important thing over time 
is that we provide regular access to meaningful data about 
social media usage across the entire industry, to academics and 
experts to design their own studies and draw their own 
conclusions. And that will take time because many of these 
studies can often take years, but it is something I am 
personally very committed to.
    Senator Cruz. Now, when you saw your own study, finding a 
significant percentage of girls reported that Instagram caused 
them to think about killing themselves, were you concerned by 
that finding?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, just to clarify, I believe the study 
said they trace their thoughts, but yes, I am concerned about 
anybody who feels worse about themselves after using the 
platform and certainly anyone, any one individual, because we 
are talking about people here not numbers, that has any 
suicidal thoughts.
    Senator Cruz. Well, let's talk about numbers for a second. 
Did Instagram do anything to quantify how many teenage girls 
have killed themselves because of your product?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we do research and talk to third 
party experts about not only suicide, but self-harm on a 
regular basis. And that research has inspired much of our work 
to not only make sure that we have very clear policies----
    Senator Cruz. So did you quantify it or not?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am not sure exactly what you would 
mean by quantifying the situation, but----
    Senator Cruz. Did you do research to estimate, to count how 
many teenage girls have taken their lives because of your 
product?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we do research to understand problems 
and identify solutions, in the case of suicide, to make sure we 
take down suicide related content from the platform, to connect 
those seeking out this type of content with expert backed 
resources, and to connect anyone who looks like they are a 
threat of hurting themselves with local emergency services.
    Senator Cruz. How did you change your policies as a result 
of this research to protect young girls?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I appreciate the question. We use 
research to not only change our policies, but to change our 
product on a regular basis. With regards to bullying, the 
research has inspired things like restrict, which allow you to 
protect yourself from someone who is harassing you without them 
knowing and limits because we learned that teens struggle 
during moments of transition.
    With suicide and self-injury, we learned that we need to be 
incredibly careful because often teens suffering from these 
really difficult issues use Instagram to find support, and we 
need to make sure that they can find that support and talk 
about recovery while making sure we don't----
    Senator Cruz. So, look, big tech loves to use grand 
eloquent phrases about bringing people together. But the simple 
reality and why so many Americans distrust big tech is you make 
money the more people are on your product, the more people are 
engaged in viewing content, even if that is harmful to them, 
even if they are viewing every eyeball, you are making money. 
And when your colleagues have been asked the same question, as 
a result of this research, what policies did you change? This 
committee has been unable to get a straight answer to that 
question about what is different. And I think the reason for 
that is if you change policies to reduce the eyeballs, you 
would make less money as it is. Why is that inference not 
correct?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, if people don't feel safe on our 
platform, if people don't feel good about the time that they 
spend on our platform, over time they are going to use other 
services. Competition has never been fiercer, particularly here 
in the states with YouTube and TikTok and Snapchat. And so I 
have to believe that over the long run, it is not only 
incredibly important that we keep people safe, but we make sure 
people feel good about the time that they spend on our 
platform.
    Senator Cruz. So my time has expired, but I want to make 
sure I understand the commitment you made to this committee. As 
I understand it, you have committed to providing this committee 
with the raw data from the research you did on users of your 
product and in particular body image issues and tendencies 
toward suicide, and also with the PowerPoint presentations that 
memorialized that raw data. Is that correct that you will 
provide them to this committee?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, what I am committing to you is to do 
everything I can do to release that data----
    Senator Cruz. Is there a reason you can't do what I just 
said?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, the challenge on the data, which I 
think is the most important thing, is that in many cases, we no 
longer have it.
    Senator Cruz. How about the PowerPoint presentations? Will 
you give us the PowerPoint presentations?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I think the most responsible thing to 
do is to provide access to data to external researchers outside 
the company.
    Senator Cruz. We would like both. Is there a reason you are 
hiding the PowerPoint presentations? You said you wanted 
maximum transparency. Maximum transparency would be show us the 
presentations that were prepared for you. Presumably, you had 
some reason to trust them because they were prepared for your 
consumption.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I believe you already have the 
presentations, which is why we are focused on the data. We 
think that any researcher should be able to draw their own 
conclusions based on the raw data. That is the most important 
and the most knowledgeable part of the process. Unfortunately, 
much of that data we no longer have due to data retention 
policies, which is why I am very committed to making sure that 
we can allow access to meaningful engagement data to 
researchers outside the company in the future to focus 
specifically on the effects of social media and well-being, and 
I am calling for the rest of the industry to do the same.
    Senator Cruz. So your commitment is to provide all of the 
data that you have, and the PowerPoint presentation summarized?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, my commitment is to provide 
meaningful access to data based on what researchers request, 
because I think that is the most responsible thing for us to do 
over the long run.
    Senator Cruz. OK, we are requesting right now.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, for it--to do a study on the effects 
of well-being--I am sorry, the effects of social media on well-
being, you would have to design that study. So I would like to 
talk to--we have even worked with Pew, we have worked with 
Harvard, we have worked with other organizations around the 
world. I would like to talk to the researchers and understand 
what specific data they would like access to. I can't just 
provide all data that we have. That is an untenable thing to do 
physically.
    Senator Cruz. The data that was the basis for the study 
quoted in the Wall Street Journal report. That is the data I am 
asking about, and the presentations that summarized the 
conclusions of that.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I would love to provide that data. I 
am personally working on trying to find out if there is any way 
we can provide it in a privacy safe way and in a way where we 
still have it, and because I think that is important. I have 
been working on that. I don't want to overpromise and 
underdeliver here, which is why I am more focused on how we 
make sure researchers have access to data going forward.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Cruz. I just want to 
say Mr. Mosseri, because you and I have discussed this point, 
the data sets are not enough. This answer is, in my view, just 
completely unsatisfactory. We want the studies. We want the 
research. We want the surveys. The whistleblower has disclosed 
a lot of it. And the answer that you have given, very 
respectfully, simply won't get it. It is in your files. If it 
was destroyed, we want to know about that, too. But information 
is absolutely the coin of the realm when we go about devising 
legislation.
    And I must say there is a kind of disconnect here. Senator 
Sullivan asked you about content relating to suicidal or self-
harm. I think I am quoting you almost directly, and you said 
there isn't any. Well, we have a teen account with all the 
protections on, the filters. We searched, ``slit wrists,'' and 
the results, I don't feel I can describe in this hearing room. 
They are so graphic. That is within the past couple of days. I 
described to you an account that looked at, in effect, eating 
disorders and attracted the same deluge of self-harm and 
anorexia coaches.
    So, I just feel that there is a kind of real lack of 
connection to the reality of what is there in the testimony 
that you are giving today, which makes it hard for us to have 
you as a partner and maybe we need to have some kind of 
compulsory process. You know, Senator Cruz and I don't always 
agree.
    But on this point, on the need for information, I think you 
have heard here a bipartisan call for a reality check and for 
action. And the fact that this content continues to exist on 
the site despite your denials, I think, really is hard to 
accept. You know, Instagram suggested as a solution here to 
nudge teens. I don't know whether your kids have reached the 
teen age yet. It takes more than a nudge to move teens.
    I am well beyond the teenage years of my four children, but 
if you said to a teen who was on Instagram, fixated on eating 
disorders, why don't you try snorkeling in the Bahamas, that 
nudge just won't work. And Instagram has a real asymmetric 
power here. It drives teens in a certain direction and then 
makes it very difficult for the teen, once in a dark place, to 
find light again and to get out of it.
    So, my question to you is, don't we need enforceable 
standards set by an independent authority, not an industry 
body, objective, independent researchers with full access to 
your algorithms? Will you commit to support full disclosure of 
your algorithms and a commitment to an independent authority?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we are actually--we are very aligned. 
We agree on the transparency--the importance of transparency, 
not only of how ranking works----
    Senator Blumenthal. Well, then you would make available all 
of the studies, like the ones that Frances Haugen presented to 
us when she was here.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I am confident that we are more 
transparent than any other tech company in the industry.
    Senator Blumenthal. That is a pretty low bar, Mr. Mosseri. 
That is like you are in the gutter, forgive me, in terms of 
transparency, because they committed to make available their 
algorithms, but only after we pressed them to do it, and we 
still are awaiting full compliance.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, we have been publishing research for 
years. We are going to publish over 100 things this year alone. 
I believe that there is an immense amount of data in our 
quarterly reports. I believe that we are going to start having 
them audited by Ernst & Young starting this quarter. I believe 
that our ads library provides more transparency in advertising 
than any other advertising business in any industry, tech or 
otherwise. Yes, I believe there is more to do.
    Yes, I believe in Federal legislation. Yes, I believe that 
policymakers should be actively involved in that, and I am 
looking forward to having our teams work with yours on shaping 
exactly what that looks like.
    Senator Blumenthal. Will you support the EARN IT Act?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, directionally we believe strongly in 
transparency and accountability. I am unfortunately not 
familiar with every provision in that Act, but more than happy 
to have our team work with you on that.
    Senator Blumenthal. If you believe what you have testified 
here, you would say, yes, I support the EARN IT Act.
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, respectfully, I don't think would be 
appropriately appropriate for me to commit to something that I 
haven't read in full. But I really do want our team to work 
with yours. As I have said, we are calling for industry wide 
regulation. We believe it is incredibly important. It is why we 
are having this hearing today. It is why I appreciate these 
questions, even though they are difficult at times because we 
believe there is nothing more important than keeping teens safe 
online. And we believe we need to come together and----
    Senator Blumenthal. Do you support prohibitions, bans on 
advertising and marketing to teens for products that are 
illegal for them to consume?
    Mr. Mosseri.--Senator, I believe we already prohibit that. 
So in the case of under 18 year olds, we don't provide--we 
don't allow ads for--we don't we don't allow ads for tobacco to 
any age, but we don't allow ads for things like gambling for 
under 18. We don't allow ads for alcohol for under 21.
    Senator Blumenthal. Would you support legally enforceable 
prohibitions where you can be held liable?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, yes, we support industry standards 
and accountability, and I believe part of those industry 
standards, as I call out in my testimony, include age 
appropriate design, which will inevitably include content rules 
about what is appropriate.
    Senator Blumenthal. If you host child sexual abuse 
material, should the victims be able to sue you?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, child exploitation is an incredibly 
serious issue. I believe an earlier Senator mentioned how we 
could collaborate with NCMEC on this. I believe that we are 
going to continue to invest more than anyone else on this 
space. And I believe that Federal regulation is the best form 
of accountability with enforcement, to your point before.
    Senator Blumenthal. I am going to turn to Senator 
Blackburn. I have a few more questions if we have time to get 
to them.
    Senator Blackburn. Yes, and in the question about NCMEC, I 
wanted to know if you reported the traffickers. And I think 
that that is something important to do. You would need to come 
back to us on that. Also, you mentioned referring children to 
local authorities. You need to let us know how many are we 
talking about? Is it in the hundreds or thousands? Give us 
those numbers so that we have that data. Also, I would like to 
know how long you hold the data on your research?
    You have mentioned you can't give us the data and then you 
said, ``well, you may not have some of this data.'' We need to 
know how long you are holding this data on minors, those 
children that you are data mining. And I was glad to hear you 
admit that you all are a big advertising business. I thought 
that that was helpful to our discussion.
    You mentioned in response to Senator Lee's question that 
you hoped you did not sound callous when we were talking about 
children that take their life or that have lifelong problems 
because of what they have encountered on Instagram.
    And sir, I have to tell you, you did sound callous, because 
every single life matters, every life matters. And this is why 
we need this research. I thought it is also interesting you 
basically give teen girls no recourse if they get into a dark 
spot using Instagram. But we have got a lot of parents that 
come to us, this is why we are doing these hearings, and they 
are concerned about how their children are going to be affected 
for the rest of their life.
    And I asked you yesterday when we talked, if you ever 
talked to these parents whose children have taken their lives 
or have they ended up having to have mental health services 
because of what they have been incurred, and you said, yes, you 
do.
    So I want to give you 1 minute. I speak to parents who are 
struggling. Their children have attempted suicide, or maybe 
some of them have taken their life.
    So take the next minute and speak directly to these 
parents. Because as I told you yesterday, I have talked to a 
lot of parents. They have never heard one word from Instagram 
or Facebook or Meta, and they are struggling with this. Senator 
Cantwell brought this up to you. So, sir, the next 60 seconds, 
the floor is yours.
    Senator Blumenthal. You can have longer than a minute, if 
you would like.
    Senator Blackburn. Speak to these parents because we are 
not talking to people that have ever had any kind of response 
from Instagram. And you have broken these children's lives and 
you have broken these parents' hearts are flawed. Floor is 
yours. Have at it.
    Mr. Mosseri. Thank you, Senator. Senator, I am a father of 
three. To any parent who has lost a child or even had a child 
hurt themselves, I can't begin to imagine what that would be 
like for one of my three boys. As the head of Instagram, it is 
my responsibility to do all I can to keep people safe.
    I have been committed to that for years and I am going to 
continue to do so. Whether or not we invest more than every 
other company or not doesn't really matter for any individual, 
and if any individual harms themselves or has a negative 
experience on our platform that is something that I take 
incredibly seriously.
    Now, I know I have talked a lot about parental controls. As 
I have said, I really do believe that a parent knows what is 
best for their child or guardian, but I also know that a lot of 
parents are busy. I have got three kids and I have a lot of 
support.
    I can't imagine what it would be like to have four kids or 
three kids and be a single parent working two jobs. And so I 
don't want to rely on parental controls. I think it is 
incredibly important that the experience is safe and 
appropriate for your age, no matter what it is, 13, 15, 17.
    But if you have the time and the interest, I also think as 
a parent you have the right to be able to understand what your 
kids are doing online, and you should have control to shape 
that experience into what is best for them. And if you don't 
have time, that is OK too. It is my responsibility to do all I 
can to help, not only to keep young people safe on our 
platform, but anybody who uses our platform.
    Senator Blackburn. Mr. Mosseri, we are telling you, 
children have inflicted self-harm. They are getting information 
that is destroying their young lives. And we are asking you, 
have some empathy and take some responsibility. And it seems as 
if you just can't get on that path. So we are going to continue 
to work on this issue. I wish that your response had been a 
more empathetic response.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Blackburn. I just have 
one more question, and I think we are going to make the 5 p.m. 
deadline. We want to be respectful of your time. I understand 
that it is important to have your internal discussions and 
debate, as any company must. But these studies and research are 
really important for parents to make decisions. And I am 
reminded of actually some work I did when I was State Attorney 
General in Connecticut. We were one of the first states, with 
the help of a company in Connecticut named Legos, to require 
warnings about small parts on toys, which I urged the 
Legislature to do as State Attorney General.
    Then I fought the industry when it challenged that labeling 
and we won against challenges based on the Commerce Clause and 
other constitutional claims. And the Supreme Court denied 
certiorari, and then the industry decided it wanted a Federal 
standard because it didn't want to deal with state by state 
requirements. Well, the point was that the law required 
companies to disclose risks. It encouraged them to compete over 
values that were positive and that promoted safety.
    And that is the kind of competition that we need in your 
industry. As Senator Klobuchar mentioned earlier, we have been 
working on antitrust measures to promote more competition so 
that maybe there will be some on safety, but disclosure, the 
disinfected in sunlight is so important. So my question to you 
is, would Instagram support legal requirements on social media 
platforms to provide public disclosures about the risks of 
harms, the risk of harms in content?
    Mr. Mosseri. Senator, I would support Federal legislation 
around the transparency of data, around the access to data from 
researchers, and around the prevalence of content problems on 
the platform. I think all of those are important ways that 
parents or anyone really can get a sense for what a platform is 
doing and what its effects on people are. I believe deeply that 
transparency is important, which is why I am confident we are 
going to continue to lead the industry on being incredibly 
transparent about what happens on our platform.
    Senator Blumenthal. Well, you have said repeatedly that you 
are in favor of one goal or another directionally. And I find 
that term really incomplete when it isn't accompanied by 
specific commitments, a yes or a no. And we are going to move 
forward on this committee, directionally with specifics. The 
kinds of baby steps that you have suggested so far, very 
respectfully, are underwhelming, a nudge, a break. That isn't 
going to save kids from the addictive effects.
    And there is no question there are addictive effects of 
your platform, and I think you will sense on this committee 
pretty strong determination to do something well beyond what 
you have indicated you have in mind, and that is the reason 
that I think self-policing based on trust is no longer a viable 
solution. So we thank you for being here today. We are going to 
continue the effort to develop legislation. Many of us, Senator 
Markey, Senator Thune, Senator Klobuchar, myself, working with 
Senator Blackburn, who has been a great partner in this effort. 
This hearing record will remain open for two weeks.
    If you feel you want to supplement any of your answers or 
my colleagues who would like to submit questions for the 
record, should do so by December 22. And we ask that your 
responses be returned to the Committee as quickly as possible 
and no more than two weeks after received. That concludes 
today's hearing. Thank you very much for being here. And I 
think we are pretty much on time. Thank you.
    Mr. Mosseri. Thank you, Chairman Blumenthal. Thank you, 
Ranking Member Blackburn. I appreciate your time.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 5:01 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X

Hiding in Plain Sight: Exposure of Adolescent White Males in Appalachia 
                   to Harmful Content on Social Media

   Dr. Joel Beeson, Professor, Reed College of Media, West Virginia 
                               University

Prologue
    My scholarship encompasses decades of historical research on racism 
during wartime in the nation, and digital forensic investigation of 
online radicalization in social media and gaming platforms. I've been a 
member of the Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust since 2008 
and was invited in 2017 by the Hon. Charles Rangel to provide testimony 
on the historical parallels of the WWI era to the rising divisions, 
polarization, extremism and racism in our Nation's present. I am 
currently co-producing with my colleague (and spouse) a feature-length 
documentary film on the vectors of youth radicalization in the 
Appalachia region through the social media and gaming digital 
ecosystem.
    Since 2016, we have been leading a team of researchers and 
investigative journalists at West Virginia University studying how 
social media and gaming platforms expose and radicalize youth in 
Appalachia (primarily on boys and young men ages 10-22). A significant 
component of this research has included data collection on harms to 
youth within Instagram specifically, uncovering a mix of violent, 
pornographic, misogynistic (including radical incel or ``involuntarily 
celibate'' content), racist and homophobic content targeted to youth 
and teens--often posed as jokes or memes. This toxic content is 
interspersed with benign content and serves to desensitize, manipulate, 
normalize and groom youth toward forms of extremism and violence. This 
research has been funded by grants from the Ford Foundation and the 
Democracy Fund.
    From healthcare to the economy, lessons learned in Appalachia are 
broadly applicable on a national scale. Harmful, toxic content on 
social media in our region is no different.
                                                Joel Beeson
                                 ______
                                 
Introduction
    Social media and smartphone use has become ubiquitous feature of 
teen's everyday life and culture. According to the 2018 Pew Research 
Center study, Teens, Social Media and Technology, 95 percent of 
adolescents have access to a smartphone, while 45 percent say they are 
online on a near constant basis. Roughly nine-in-ten teens reported 
being online multiple times per day (Pew, 2018). In another recent 
study, nearly 80 percent of teens checked their smartphones at least 
hourly, while 50 percent of teens and nearly 60 percent of parents feel 
their teens are addicted to their devices (Felt & Robb, 2016). Social 
media is undoubtedly where adolescents spend most of their time online, 
and it is a dominant social space in the formation of teen culture.
    For young people, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Tiktok are the 
most popular social media platforms. In the Pew study, 72 percent of 
teens reported using Instagram, a social media platform that relies on 
images as primary means of communication. A study of young adults using 
Instagram found that entertainment (diversion) and sharing image posts 
(social interaction) was the chief reason for using the app (Huang & 
Su, 2018). A key mode of visual messaging on Instagram is the 
widespread use and sharing of memes. In our research, we have 
identified memes as the primary conveyor of harmful content on 
Instagram.
    The ironic, unsettled semiotic equations of memes enable their use 
in propaganda as a ``ploy''--a sort of linguistic trojan horse--to 
throw so much doubt and chaos on its actual interpretation so that the 
user is unsure if it's a joke or not (Michigan Academician, 2021). The 
``It's just a prank, Bruh'' disclaimer gives the author or publisher 
plausible deniability and ironic distance.
    We documented anti-Semitic and Islamophobic speech and memes shared 
within an adolescent community in the years and months prior to the 
2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh and subsequently the 
Christchurch massacre at two mosques in 2019, killing 51 people and 
injuring 40, including children. This was a clarifying tragedy in which 
the shooter's own manifesto referenced the same ``Sub to Pewds'' 
(YouTube influencer PewDiePie) and other extreme right-wing memes 
circulating amongst middle and high schoolers in Appalachia and across 
the country. As we observed the online social worlds of youth 
communities in the region, we increasingly understood the path by which 
adolescent hate memes inevitably collided with real-world violence, 
regional and international networks of organized white supremacists, 
abetted by trolls, digital profiteers and the mechanics and economic 
model of the platforms themselves.
    The impact and success of networked propaganda and memetic warfare 
has continued to be evident in the proliferation of disinformation and 
normalization of conspiracy theories in the COVID-19 pandemic era, and 
in the rise of armed and violent illegal militias and paramilitary 
groups--such as the so-called ``Boogaloo Bois''--in the wake of Black 
Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020.
    Several scholars have recognized the importance of online spaces as 
an increasingly important vector of youth socialization. As Julia 
DeCook (2018, p. 485) argues in her study of memes used by the Proud 
Boys, a violent right-wing group:

        ``The growth of digital technology and social media use among 
        populations across the world has given rise to a new 
        socializing institution for children, teenagers, and young 
        adults (Alava, Frau-Meigs, and Hassan, 2017). These online 
        platforms are places of civic engagement and political 
        expression, particularly among youth, and thus have the 
        potential to socialize youth into political ideologies and 
        sensemaking processes of their worlds (Bennett et al., 2012; 
        Edgerly et al., 2016).''

    Kurek, Jose and Stuart (2019) observe that the online media 
landscape offers a unique social space for adolescents to explore 
identity formation in what Suler (2004) and others have termed 
``increased disinhibition'' or the ``freedom for dissociative self-
expression.'' Studies have shown that most teens believe the online 
environment provides a space safe from criticism, judgement, or real-
life consequences. (Bauman, 2010; Runions & Bak, 2015 and Suler, 2004). 
Teens confess to sharing a different self-identity offline compared to 
online (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). In a developmental stage where the 
formation of self and anxieties about sexual and gender identity can be 
difficult, confusing and uncertain, adolescents are uniquely 
susceptible to manipulation and disinformation.
    In interviews and collaboration with sociologists, psychologists, 
public health professionals, we concur that these online effects 
comprise a moral injury to affected youth.
    Other scholars have identified how online spaces are used to prey 
on boys in particular, and we suggest the notion of ``self-
radicalized'' individuals belies the complexities of an entire 
ecosystem of influences--one in which they are targeted, exposed, and 
socialized to normalized, incentivized dehumanizing content over hours, 
weeks, months and years.
    According to a review of current research, evidence suggests that 
exposure to radical or violent online material is associated with a 
higher risk of committing political violence offline (Hassan, et. al, 
2018). The review found that extremist groups disproportionately target 
youth for recruitment with ``narratives that resonate with their 
grievances and need for belonging and excitement'' (p.72). Because 
adolescence is a period of searching for identity, those youth without 
a sense of belonging or positive national identity are considered at a 
higher risk for radicalization. As Cynthia Miller-Idriss (2020) writes, 
``almost all recent research finds the `need for belonging' is key to 
extremism, along with a need for control.'' Our current research on 
adolescent exposure to right-wing extremism and white supremacy online 
bears out these observations.
Research Methods and Results
Digital Ethnography
    From 2017 to 2021, we have observed actual teen Instagram accounts, 
mapping networks of harmful content regionally and ties to their global 
connections. We have collected and looked at the material semiotics of 
memes circulating authentically in Appalachian youth culture.
Focus Groups and Interviews
    Throughout 2019 and 2020 we conducted seven focus groups and 
numerous individual interviews with young males in West Virginia (ages 
11-19, with middle and high school students, as well as one group of 
college freshman. This research revealed that Instagram is the teens' 
overwhelmingly favorite social media platform for interacting with 
peers specifically for entertainment. In addition, most reported being 
exposed to hate speech or traumatic content online and expressed the 
sentiment that it was simply normal--a ``natural'' feature of the 
Internet and social media.
    Focus groups with teachers, school technologists, and interviews of 
affected groups, including religious and racial minorities, revealed 
that this online content spilled over into real-world behavior in 
schools. Two siblings in high school had this exchange with an 
interviewer:

        Interviewer: ``Okay. Have you heard friends or other students 
        say anything about Nazis from memes and games, just joking?''
        Both: ``Yes.''
        Teen 2: ``I think also because we're Jewish.''
        Teen 1: ``I hear a lot of people just walking the halls at my 
        school, I hear a lot of groups of people joke about things like 
        that. I've even had friends say that in conversations I'm in 
        who know that I'm Jewish. I think it probably just slips their 
        mind or something. It's not that I'm going to be like `oh you 
        said that' but I would prefer if they wouldn't say that in 
        front of me.''

        Interviewer: ``So, what kinds of things do they say?''
        Teen 1: ``Just like Hitler jokes and different things about 
        Jews.''
        Teen 2: ``Yes like Holocaust jokes.''

        Interviewer: ``If you could put a number on it, how frequently 
        does that occur?''
        Teen 2: ``I've at least heard it daily. I don't think it's been 
        directed at me daily, but I've definitely heard it daily when 
        I'm at school. ``
Surveys
    In addition to focus groups, we conducted anonymous, text-based 
surveys of nearly 300 middle and high school students in six schools in 
West Virginia. A little more than one-half of students (51 percent) 
said that Instagram was the platform of choice for sharing memes. 
Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) reported being exposed to memes that 
they regarded as hate speech, which we operationally defined as 
``harmful content targeted to groups based on race, religion, class, 
sexual orientation or disability.'' Written responses elaborating on 
this question were as follows:

   ``I see a lot of memes targeting Jews.''

   ``People use African American, Latino, and white stereotypes 
        as jokes.''

   ``They say the N word and I partake in the slop.''

   ``There are memes that make jokes about kids on the autism 
        spectrum.''

   ``It's funny because it's offensive.''

   ``Yes, Muslims exploding.''

   ``Memes making fun of SIMPS (suckers idolizing mediocre 
        pussy).''

   ``Memes about the Coronavirus and the Asian race.''

   ``Of course. I've seen memes targeting blacks, whites, 
        Asians, communist, etc. They'll be jokes or stereotypes. But 
        you have to take them like a grain of salt. There's just 
        jokes.''

    When asked if they had ever reported this content to the platform 
or told an adult parent, guardian or teacher, 72 percent said no. A 
sample of responses to this question indicate that teens feel that 
reporting hate speech is futile:

   ``No, because no one does anything.''

   ``No, that's just stupid and what would they even do about 
        it.''

   ``No, it's not offensive or a problem.''

   ``No why would I do that?''
The Instagram Experiment
    Conventional wisdom and media myths focus on the actions of 
individuals, giving rise to ideas of the ``lone wolf'' who seeks out 
toxic content on the ``dark web.'' Based upon observations, surveys and 
interviews of teens and their social media exposure, we felt like this 
was an inadequate explanation for the ubiquity of toxic and harmful 
content we observed in youth feeds and in off-line behavior.
    We established a protocol designed to test the platform's and 
external actors' actions through Instagram algorithms that suggest 
content to users:

   Suggested Accounts--Instagram suggests accounts based upon 
        algorithmic analysis of the user.

   Explore Feature--Instagram suggested posts, videos and 
        stories based upon algorithmic analysis of the user.

    We wanted to identify the how the platform curates content for a 
presumed 13-year-old boy in West Virginia. We also based the design of 
the protocol on the steps youth take in creating an Instagram account 
for the first time, which reveals their initial reliance on the 
suggestions of the platforms coupled with targeting by accounts that 
immediately begin to follow their new account. We followed setting up a 
13-year-old boy's account based on their reported behavior:

        Interviewer: ``What app is the one that is used most for 
        sending memes?''
        Teen: ``Instagram.''

        Interviewer: ``So, if you had to say like a ratio of how much 
        time you spent on one app vs. another what would you say?''
        Teen: ``I spend a lot more time on Instagram than I do any 
        other app because that's like one of the ways I get ahold of 
        people. Like, just going through and seeing what got posted.''

        Interviewer: ``How do you pick the people you follow?''
        Teen: ``Say, if I just made an Instagram account and, like, the 
        first person I followed, if you go to their account, it will 
        say suggested. And then you, like, go in there and follow 
        people from that.''

    To inhibit the variable of user influence and to help isolate the 
role of algorithms, we took minimal user actions. These steps in part 
included:

  1.  Set up burner phones with a new e-mail and Instagram account. 
        This insured the device and account had no data history to 
        affect suggestion and curating algorithms.

  2.  We created usernames based on information from teen interviews 
        and focus groups about how youth decide on a username.

  3.  We followed a few popular official gaming accounts and regional 
        sports accounts (Minecraft, Fortnite, Call of Duty and 
        Mountaineer Football, The Red Cup and Mountaineer Maniacs) when 
        first signing up to signal location and gender/age of the user.

  4.  We followed recommended meme accounts through Instagram's 
        ``Explore'' and ``Suggested Accounts'' features.

  5.  We followed back accounts who followed us.

  6.  We took screenshots of harmful content.

    When we first piloted the Instagram experiment in the summer of 
2019, we expected to encounter harmful content in the span of weeks or 
months. Frankly, we were shocked to see this content appear within 
three or four days of being on Instagram for a few hours per day. Eight 
subsequent experiments during 2019 and 2020 confirmed that the actions 
of the platform algorithms, suggested accounts and explore features, 
and follows by other accounts -independent of user decisions or 
searches--leads to a mix of racist, antisemitic, homophobic, sexually 
explicit, ableist, misogynistic, Islamophobic and violent content in 
the form of memes.
    This harmful media was intermingled with benign content, as well as 
memes calling for a return to traditional gender roles, masculinity and 
physical strength, orthodox Christianity and the Crusades, COVID-19 
conspiracy memes and related natural health remedies and ``wellness'' 
content.
    A member of our research team, after conducting an experiment 
session, reported that ``it made me want to throw up and cry.''
Discussion and Conclusions
    Although this research is still in process, presented initially at 
the Social Science Research Council's program Extreme Right 
Radicalization Online: Platforms, Processes, Prevention, as well as in 
closed-door briefings to other researchers and mental health 
practitioners, we felt compelled to share excerpts for this hearing in 
light of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's revelations, as this 
work includes investigation into Instagram specifically and is relevant 
to the scope of this committee's investigation into online harm from 
social media platforms.
    The scope of this research supports that in the current media 
ecosystem, where the dominant economic model of social media--the 
attention economy--drives machine learning algorithms to maximize the 
amount of time teens are on their devices and are interacting with 
social media platforms such as Instagram, has the networked effect of 
indiscriminately amplifying content and topics that prioritize 
engagement. With teens, this content is often sensational and serves to 
manipulate teens natural developmental anxieties, fears and 
uncertainties about identity, sexuality, religion and spirituality, and 
most importantly, social belonging and acceptance. What is most 
striking is our observations of how few actions need to be taken by a 
user to encounter dangerous and toxic content. A recent study by the 
Center for Countering Digital Hate in the UK confirmed that Instagram's 
suggestion algorithms for new users were ``actively pushing 
radicalising, extremist misinformation to users'' including QAnon and 
COVID-19 anti-vaccination conspiracy misinformation, content promoting 
far-right ``accelerationist and militia groups who aim to bring about 
civil war'' along with natural health and ``wellness'' Instagram 
influencers connected or in adjacent networks (Center for Countering 
Digital Hate, 2021). Their study provides additional evidence 
corroborating our research findings.
    Extreme, provocative and often traumatic content targeted to youth 
in dark and ironic memes include references to child abuse, child 
pornography, incest, rape, suicide, racism, addiction, gun violence and 
school shootings. That this content is often juxtaposed in an endless 
scroll with benign content only further serves to desensitize youth to 
traumatic matter, and to create feelings of shame, isolation and 
susceptibility that is a vector for manipulation toward extremism.
    Economic and opioid decimation in Appalachia have eroded family 
stability, and strained social and community infrastructure. In West 
Virginia, it's estimated that more than 50 percent of children in some 
counties are not being raised by their parents, and instead are in 
foster care or living with a grandparent because parents have either 
died from overdose, are in treatment, or in prison. This is complicated 
by ``kin-caregiving'' by aging grandparents who may not fully 
understand young people's technology use, and may be economically 
overwhelmed, in poor health or experiencing other life traumas. This 
awareness of a grim and present reality, combined with continuous 
exposure to toxic content, exacerbated by the pandemic and polarizing 
portrayals of persistent civil unrest only further serves to confirm 
the very premise repeatedly asserted by extremist propaganda and other 
information warfare that ``civilization is in decline.''
    In prior presentations of this research, we are often asked, Who is 
behind this? But it's the wrong question to ask. It's not a who 
question--it's a what question.
    There are no boogeymen in this digital landscape, but a complex 
ecosystem and a constellation of actors who have learned to ``game'' or 
weaponize the system for a host of reasons. These include: Trolls, and 
nonstate bad actors engaged in mischief and disruptive behaviors 
online; State Actors (Sophisticated disinformation campaigns by agents 
of other countries designed to amplify polarization, seed social 
dysfunction, mistrust and disseminate propaganda, which can also 
include sophisticated white supremacist content (Martineau, 2018)); 
Non-organized white supremacists (Individuals who have already been 
``red-pilled'' or co-opted by conspiratorial thinking who actively 
distribute and engage in extremist or extremist adjacent content but 
are not formally or knowingly associated with organized groups); 
Organized extremist groups (Organizations recognized as hate groups or 
terrorist organizations, which include homegrown splinter cells and 
international networks); And what we refer to as ``Arms Dealers'' 
(Individuals who are not ideologically motivated but who create and 
distribute extremist and extremist adjacent content and participate in 
amplification for financial reasons); which can include bots, written 
by individuals to harvest high ranking content that combines benign and 
toxic content; And of course algorithms (the complex, proprietary 
machine learning software that platforms apply to systematically 
personalize and amplify content with high engagement potential and 
monetization).
    From our vantage point we have been able to view this system 
holistically and over time. We observe the private Instagram accounts 
that use what we have come to term ``teen lures'' such as ``don't-tell-
your-parents'' accounts adjacent to the porn and gore meme generators. 
We observe the links dropped into Instagram comment threads to follow 
de-platformed content to new locations, we see the sickening memes that 
systematically dehumanize people of color adjacent to harmless middle-
school memes; we see the ``Holy Wars'' crusades cartoonized memes that 
are adjacent to insidious and dangerous adult accounts valorizing 
extremist violence.
    We see the tactic in which extremist and extremist-adjacent content 
overlaps or is embedded in pornographic and ``gore'' videos and other 
dark or ``edgy'' material targeting adolescent males in a highly 
stimulating cocktail of complex messaging. This content intentionally 
preys on adolescent instincts toward what has been described as ``dark 
play''--a natural curiosity exploring sexuality and death outside of 
the boundaries of adult rules for gameplay, but which has become 
weaponized to drive users toward extremes coupled with the infinite 
scroll of Instagram designed to stimulate the same bursts of brain 
chemicals that drive gambling addiction at slot machines.
    Others have cited the cognitive theory and behavioral neuroscience 
that go into designing systems that drive individuals to extremes and 
for great profit. When this is amplified by sophisticated bad actors, 
it is nothing less than information warfare--with tactics that are too 
complex for children, parents or individual community members to combat 
alone. This perspective does not reflect a moral panic or a call to 
surveil authentic teen culture online. Rather we suggest there is 
little that is in fact authentic about these highly manipulated spaces. 
We have come to view the unregulated ecosystem of social media as a 
public health crisis and a potential moral injury to a generation.
    It is important to realize that while adult content moderators are 
suffering PTSD, trauma, and depression from viewing this content--youth 
on platforms such as Instagram are consuming this without any 
mitigating messaging or support interventions to help them cope with 
what they see.
    As one teen told is in an interview of the content he's seen 
online, ``I stopped feeling in the 5th grade.''
Citations
    Bauman, S. (2009). Cyberbullying in a Rural Intermediate School: An 
Exploratory Study. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 30(6), 803-833. 
https://doi:10.1177/0272431609350927

    Bennett, Lance & Freelon, D.G. & Hussain, M.M. & Wells, Chris. 
(2012). Digital media and youth engagement. http://doi:10.4135/
9781446201015.n11

    Center for Countering Digital Hate. (2021). Malgorithm: How 
Instagram's algorithm publishes misinformation and hate to millions 
during a pandemic. https://www.counterhate.com/malgorithm

    DeCook, J. R. (2018). Memes and symbolic violence: #proudboys and 
the use of memes for propaganda and the construction of collective 
identity. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(4), 485. https://
doi:10.1080/17439884.2018.1544149

    Felt, Laurel & Robb, Michael. (2016). Technology Addiction: 
Concern, Controversy, and Finding Balance. Common Sense Media. https://
www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/research/
csm_2016_technology_addiction_research_brief_0.pdf

    Hassan, G., Brouillette-Alarie Sebastien, Alava Seraphin, Frau-
Meigs, D., Lavoie, L., Fetiu, A., Varela, W., Borokhovski, E., 
Venkatesh, V., Rousseau Cecile, Sieckelinck, S., Scheithauer, H., 
Leuschner, V., Bockler Nils, Akhgar, B., & Nitsch, H. (2018). 
Exposure to extremist online content could lead to violent 
radicalization: a systematic review of empirical evidence. 
International Journal of Developmental Science, 12(1-2), 71-88. https:/
/doi.org/10.3233/DEV-170233

    Huang, Y.-T., & Su, S.-F. (2018). Motives for Instagram use and 
topics of interest among young adults. Future Internet, 10(8), 77-77. 
https://doi.org/10.3390/fi10080077

    Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! 
the challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 
53(1), 59-59. https://doi-org.wvu.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/
j.bushor.2009.09.003

    Kurek, A., Jose, P. E., & Stuart, J. (2019). `I did it for the 
lulz': how the dark personality predicts online disinhibition and 
aggressive online behavior in adolescence. Computers in Human Behavior, 
98, 31-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.03.027

    Language Games, Irony and Satire as Socio-Material Frames for 
Offensive Posts and Memes in Social Media. (2021). Michigan 
Academician, 47(3), 18. https://wvu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://
www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/language-games-irony-satire-as-
socio-material/docview/2576372125/se-2?accountid=2837

    Martineau, Paris. (2018). How Instagram Became the Russian IRA's 
Go-To Social Network. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/how-instagram-
became-russian-iras-social-network/

    Maxime, D. (n.d.). The ``great meme war:'' the alt-right and its 
multifarious enemies. Angles, 10. https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.369

    Miller-Idriss, C. (2020, September 08). Portland and Kenosha 
violence was predictable--and preventable. The Conversation. https://
theconversation.com/portland-and-kenosha-violence-was-predictable-and-
preventable-145505

    Munn, L. (2019). Alt-right pipeline: Individual journeys to 
extremism online. First Monday, 24(6). https://doi.org/10.5210/
fm.v24i6.10108

    Phillips W., Milner R.M. (2017) Decoding Memes: Barthes' Punctum, 
Feminist Standpoint Theory, and the Political Significance of 
#YesAllWomen. In: Harrington S. (eds) Entertainment Values. Palgrave 
Entertainment Industries. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/
10.1057/978-1-137-47290-8_13

    Pew Research Center (May 2018). Teens, Social Media & Technology 
2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-social-
media-technology-2018/

    Runions, K. C., & Bak, M. (2015). Online Moral Disengagement, 
Cyberbullying, and Cyber-Aggression. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and 
Social Networking, 18(7), 400-405. https://doi:10.1089/cyber.2014.0670

    Seraphin, Alava & Frau-Meigs, Divina & Hassan, Ghayda. (2019). 
Youth And Violent Extremism On Social Media Mapping The Research. 
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000260382

    Shevyrolet. (2020). Image Macros. Know Your Meme https://
knowyourmeme.com/memes/image-macros

    Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. CyberPsychology 
& Behavior, 7(3), 321-326. https://doi:10.1089/1094931041291295
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Maria Cantwell to 
                              Adam Mosseri
    Children and Adolescent Use and Misuse of Meta Platforms. 
Information provided by Frances Haugen indicates that data regarding 
users' interests, friends, and other interactions can and is used by 
Meta to infer with relatively precise accuracy the real age of users.
    Question 1. Is it true, from a technological perspective, that data 
about a user's interests, friends, and the accounts with which they 
interact can predict an individual's age?

  (a)  If yes:

    i.  With how much precision? Please also describe the methods and 
            metrics by which Meta predicts an individual's age.

    ii.  Explain each instance in which Meta has used these age-
            prediction models in connection with its products.

  (b)  If no:

    i.  Does Meta make its advertising clients or investors aware that 
            Meta is unable to make predictions about the ages of its 
            users? If so, please provide copies of such disclosures.

    Answer. Determining the age of people on social media is a complex 
challenge across our industry.
    We've developed artificial intelligence technology that allows us 
to estimate people's ages, like if someone is below or above 18. We 
train the technology using multiple signals. We look at things like 
people wishing someone a happy birthday, and the age written in those 
messages--for example, ``Happy 21st Bday!'' or ``Happy Quinceanera.'' 
We also look at the age of that person's Facebook friends or Instagram 
followers. These age estimations are used to ensure people are having 
an age-appropriate experience, for example, by preventing them from 
accessing services for people o ver 18 years old, like Facebook Dating, 
or correctly operating certain safety features, like identifying people 
under 18 to provide proactive warnings in a conversation with an adult 
that may be inappropriate.
    We're also focused on using existing data to inform our artificial 
intelligence technology. Where we do feel we need more information, 
we're developing a menu of options for someone to prove their age. This 
is a work in progress. Our technology isn't perfect, and we're always 
working to improve it, but that's why it's important we use it 
alongside many other signals to understand people's ages.
    We're also in discussions with the wider technology industry on how 
we can work together to share information in privacy-preserving ways to 
help apps establish whether people are over a specific age. One area 
that we believe has real promise is working with operating system 
(``OS'') providers, Internet browsers, and other providers so they can 
share information to help apps establish whether someone is of an 
appropriate age.
    This has the dual benefit of helping developers keep underage 
people off their apps, while removing the need for people to go through 
different and potentially cumbersome age verification processes across 
multiple apps and services. While it's ultimately up to individual apps 
and websites to enforce their age policies and comply with their legal 
obligations, collaboration with OS providers, Internet browsers, and 
others would be a helpful addition to those efforts.
    Finally, we're also building technology to find and remove accounts 
belonging to people under the age of 13. We have tools and processes to 
identify and remove people who falsely state they are 13 years old or 
older. For example, anyone can report an underage account to us. Our 
content reviewers are also trained to flag reported accounts that 
appear to be used by people who are underage. If these people are 
unable to prove they meet our minimum age requirements, we delete their 
accounts. In the last two quarters of 2021, Meta removed more than 4.8 
million accounts on Facebook and 1.7 million accounts on Instagram 
because they were unable to meet our minimum age requirement.

    Question 2. Meta uses data about its users' interests, friends, and 
other accounts with which they interact in order to provide targeted 
advertising to its users. Can Meta use this data to make its platforms 
safer for users under the age of 13? Can Meta use this data to identify 
users under the age of 13 and disable their accounts? If so, does Meta 
do so?
    Answer. We prohibit people under the age of 13 from using Facebook 
or Instagram. When we learn an underage user has created an account, we 
remove them from the platform. As discussed above, determining people's 
age on social media is a complex challenge across our industry. We have 
various methods of finding and removing accounts used by people who 
falsely state they are 13 years old or older. For more information on 
our efforts to keep people under 13 years old off of our platforms, 
please see the response to your Question 1.
    We are working on developing technology to proactively identify 
individuals under 13 years old to prevent them from signing up for our 
services and to remove them from the platforms. This process is not 
straightforward and presents many challenges, including but not limited 
to considerations pertaining to children's data.
    Although this is an industry-wide issue, we are dedicated to 
investigating existing and novel avenues for validating age, while also 
working to ensure we are striking the right balance between using 
personal information to verify age and the principle of data 
minimization. To that end, we are in discussions with the wider 
technology industry about ways to share information in privacy-
preserving ways that help apps--such as Instagram--establish whether 
people are over a specific age. As discussed above, one such area that 
we are exploring is accessing device/operative system-level signals 
further upstream (e.g., at app download) that would help Instagram 
understand a user's age, in addition to in-app verification methods.
    As explained in our Data Policy, we collect three basic categories 
of data about people: (1) data about things people do and share (and 
who they connect with) on our services; (2) data about the devices 
people use to access our services; and (3) data we receive from 
partners, including the websites and apps that use our Business Tools. 
Our Business Tools Terms expressly prohibit our partners from sharing 
with us data they know or reasonably should know is from or about 
people under the age of 13. For more information, please visit https://
www.facebook.com/policy.php.

    Question 3. Explain in detail all actions Meta takes to keep users 
under the age of 13 off its platforms. In your response, include: (a) 
any actions previously considered and not implemented (and explain why 
they were not implemented); and (b) any actions that are planned for 
the future but not currently implemented (and explain why they have not 
been implemented yet).
    Answer. Please see the response to your Questions 1 and 2.

    Question 4. Does Meta have information regarding the actual or 
estimated number of users on each of its platforms who are under the 
age of 13?
  (a)  If yes:

    i.  By platform, what is the actual or estimated number of users 
            who are under the age of 13? Please state whether the 
            number is actual or an estimate, and how Meta determined 
            those numbers.

    ii.  Does Meta make this information available to the public, 
            including advertisers and investors? If not, why?

    iii.  Explain why Meta does not keep these users under the age of 
            13 off its platforms. For each reason, state whether it is 
            a technological barrier or a business decision and fully 
            explain the nature of the technological barrier or the 
            rational for the business decision.

  (b)  If no:

    i.  Will Meta commit to obtaining this information about its users 
            and make it publicly available, including to advertisers 
            and investors?

    Answer. Per Facebook's Terms of Service and Instagram's Terms of 
Use, people under 13 are not allowed on our platforms. When we learn 
that someone under 13 years old is on our platform, we remove them.
    As discussed in the response to Question 1, Meta has published data 
regarding the number of accounts it has removed for failing to meet our 
minimum age requirement. In the last two quarters of 2021, Meta removed 
more than 4.8 million accounts on Facebook and 1.7 million accounts on 
Instagram because they were unable to meet our minimum age requirement.
Children and Adolescent Social Media Health and Safety.
    Question 1. Has Meta ever studied, or is Meta aware of any studies, 
that shed light on how the use of Instagram detrimentally affects the 
mental or physical health of children or adolescents? If so:

  (a)  Identify and provide copies of the studies and their results and 
        describe what actions, if any, Meta took in response to such 
        studies and results.

  (b)  Do any of these studies indicate the number of hours a child or 
        adolescent can use Instagram without risk of detrimental mental 
        or physical health impacts? If so, state how many hours a child 
        or adolescent can safely use Instagram.

    Answer. We take the issues of safety and well-being on our 
platforms very seriously, especially for the youngest people who use 
our services. We are committed to working with parents and families, as 
well as experts in child development, online safety, and children's 
health and media, to ensure we are building better products for 
families. That means building tools that promote meaningful 
interactions and helping people manage their time on our platform. It 
also means giving parents the information, resources, and tools they 
need to help their children develop healthy and safe online habits. And 
it means continued research in this area.
    We employ and work with researchers from backgrounds that include 
clinical psychology, child and developmental psychology, pediatrics 
research, public health, bioethics, education, anthropology, and 
communication, and we collaborate with top scholars to navigate various 
complex issues, including those related to well-being for users on 
Facebook and Instagram. Meta also awards grants to external researchers 
in order to help us better understand how experiences on Facebook and 
Instagram relate to the safety and health of our community, including 
teen communities. And because safety and well-being aren't just Meta 
issues, but societal issues, we work with experts in the field to look 
more broadly at the impact of mobile technology and social media on 
children and how to better support them as they transition through 
different stages of life. Additionally, we support the bipartisan, 
bicameral Children and Media Research Advancement (``CAMRA'') Act, 
which would provide funding for the National Institutes of Health to 
study the impact of technology and media on the cognitive, physical, 
and socio-emotional development of children and adolescents.
    Our insights not only shed light on problems, but they also may 
inspire new ideas and changes. Most importantly, we do research to make 
our products better. We evaluate possible solutions and work every day 
to make our platforms a positive and safer experience for our 
community. We have a long track record of using research and close 
collaboration with our Safety Advisory Board, Youth Advisors, and 
additional experts and organizations to inform changes to our apps and 
provide resources for the people who use them. For example:

   We created a dedicated reporting flow for eating disorder-
        related content after learning some people were having 
        difficulty reporting such content using our prior flow.

   We launched Hidden Words, which allows people to 
        automatically filter Direct Message (``DM'') requests that 
        contain offensive words, phrases, and emojis into a Hidden 
        Folder that they never have to open if they don't want to. This 
        feature also filters DM requests that are likely to be spammy 
        or low-quality.

   We launched Restrict, which allows people to protect 
        themselves from bullying without the fear of retaliation.

   To prevent bullying, we've created comment warnings when 
        people try to post potentially offensive comments. We've found 
        that, about 50 percent of the time, people edited or deleted 
        their comments based on these warnings.

   We worked with the Jed Foundation to create expert and 
        research-backed educational resources for teens on how to 
        navigate experiences like social comparison on Instagram.

   We updated our policies to prohibit graphic content related 
        to suicide and took steps to protect vulnerable people from 
        being exposed to content related to suicide and self-injury 
        more generally in places like Explore.

    These are just some examples of the types of products and controls 
that we have launched publicly or are continuing to explore based on 
this research. And we're constantly working to improve. For example, 
our research shows--and external experts agree--that if people are 
dwelling on one topic for a while, it could be helpful to nudge them 
towards other topics at the right moment. That's why we're building a 
new experience that will nudge people towards other topics if they've 
been dwelling on one topic for a while.
    When it comes to time spent, we want to give people on our 
platforms--especially teenagers--tools and resources to help them 
manage their experiences in the ways that they want and need, including 
the time they spend. We have built time management tools including 
Daily Limit, which lets people know when they've reached the total 
amount of time they want to spend on Instagram each day; ``You're All 
Caught Up,'' which notifies people when they've caught up with new 
content on their feed; and controls to mute notifications. We also 
recently launched ``Take A Break'' to go even further and empower 
people to make informed decisions about how they're spending their time 
on Instagram. We show reminders suggesting that people close Instagram 
if they've been scrolling for a certain amount of time, and we show 
them expert-backed tips to help them reflect and reset. We try to make 
young people aware of this feature, so we show them notifications 
suggesting they turn the reminders on. Finally, we're also launching 
Instagram's first set of controls for parents and guardians, an opt-in 
feature that will allow them to see what their teens are up to on 
Instagram and manage things like the time they spend in our app. These 
new features will give parents tools to meaningfully shape their teen's 
experience.
    We also offer resources for parents and teens on issues like screen 
time, digital citizenship, and well-being. For example, in 2020 we 
launched Get Digital, which provides lessons and resources based on 
many years of academic research by our expert partners to help young 
people develop the competencies and skills they need to navigate the 
Internet more safely. We are also a founding sponsor of the Digital 
Wellness Lab, run jointly by Harvard University and Boston Children's 
Hospital, which has resources for parents and teens on issues like 
screen time in their Family Digital Wellness Guide, found here: https:/
/digitalwellnesslab.org/wp-content/uploads/Family-Digital-Wellness-
Guide-2021.pdf. Finally, we offer on-demand safety trainings that 
explore child safety tools and resources available on our apps and 
provide people with expert-informed, research-based information. These 
trainings are available at https://www.facebook.com/safety/childsafety/
trainings.
    For more information about research on this issue, please see the 
answer to your Question 2 below.
    Much of the research requested is confidential, in part to respect 
the privacy of the people who participated in these studies and also to 
promote full and frank discussion within Meta about important issues 
like teen mental health. That said, greater transparency and 
appropriate context are things we think about a lot. We know there is 
great interest in the way our platforms operate and the steps we take 
to improve them. We'll continue to look for opportunities to work with 
more partners to publish studies in this area, and we're working 
through how we can allow external researchers more access to our data 
in a way that respects people's privacy. For example, in September 
2021, we released two presentations related to these issues.

    Question 2. Does Meta believe that any of its platforms are capable 
of addicting users?
    Answer. Facebook and Instagram were built to bring people closer 
together and build relationships. We design our services to be useful. 
And we want the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram to be 
intentional, positive, and inspiring. The effects of social media are 
still being studied, and we work in collaboration with leading experts 
to better understand issues around mental health and well-being and to 
make product decisions that enable meaningful social interactions.
    Meta has been working for years to better understand and empower 
people who use our services to manage problematic use. There are many 
challenges with conducting research in this space, and we are not aware 
of a consensus among studies or experts about how much screen time is 
``too much.'' Many experts and research studies suggest it's not 
necessarily about how much time you spend on social media but more 
about what you're doing and the experiences you're having that's 
important. For example, although some research shows that passive use 
of social media--browsing and clicking links, but not interacting with 
people--can be linked with negative outcomes, research also shows that 
meaningful use of social media--sharing messages, posts, and comments--
can be linked with positive outcomes, like feeling less lonely and more 
socially supported. This understanding has led to product changes to 
facilitate active interactions and meaningful connections between 
people as well as new features that give people more control over their 
experience on our services.
    Additionally, our own research as well as external research has 
revealed significant variation in the number of people who self-report 
problematic use, depending on how it's measured. A causal link between 
social media and addiction has not been established. The research on 
the effects of social media on people's well-being is mixed. For 
example, a mixed methods study from Harvard described the ``see-saw'' 
of positive and negative experiences that U.S. teens have on social 
media. The same person may have an important conversation with their 
friend on one day and fall out with them the next day. According to 
research by Pew Internet on teens in the US, 81 percent of teens said 
that social media makes them feel more connected to their friends, 
while 26 percent reported social media makes them feel worse about 
their lives. Our findings were similar. In one internal study, surveyed 
users were more likely to say that Instagram made problematic use 
better or had no impact rather than make it worse.
    That said, we still want to provide people with tools to help them 
manage their experiences on our platforms however they see fit. For 
more information, please see our Newsroom article on this subject: 
https://about.fb.com/news/2021/11/wsj-report-ignores-our-approach-to-
well-being-research/. For example, on Instagram and as discussed in the 
answer to your previous Question, we publish expert-informed resources 
and have built time management tools including Daily Limit, which lets 
people know when they've reached the total amount of time they want to 
spend on Instagram each day; `You're All Caught Up,' which notifies 
people when they've caught up with new content on their feed; and 
controls to mute notifications. We also recently launched ``Take A 
Break'' to go even further and empower people to make informed 
decisions about how they're spending their time on Instagram. We show 
reminders suggesting that people close Instagram if they've been 
scrolling for a certain amount of time, and we show them expert-backed 
tips to help them reflect and reset. We want to make sure young people 
are aware of this feature, so we show them notifications suggesting 
they turn the reminders on.
    Further, on Facebook, we recently made it easier to sort and browse 
News Feed, giving people more control over what they see. We also 
launched Favorites, a new tool where people can control and prioritize 
posts from the friends and Pages they care about most in their News 
Feed. Specifically, people can select up to 30 friends and Pages to 
include in Favorites, and posts from these selections will appear 
higher in ranked News Feed and can also be viewed as a separate filter. 
And, on Instagram, we've started to test the ability to allow people to 
switch to different feed views, allowing people the option to see posts 
in chronological order. People can also make a close friends list on 
Stories and share with just the people they've added. We developed some 
of the tools referenced in this answer based on collaboration and 
inspiration from leading mental health experts and organizations, 
academics, internal experts, and feedback from our community. Our hope 
is that these tools give people more control over the time they spend 
on our platforms.

    Question 3. According to the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, there has been a 57 percent increase in teen suicide since 
2008, which some experts attribute to the exponential increase social 
media use among teens. Does Instagram believe there is any relationship 
between teen suicide and mental health issues (including anxiety, 
depression, or self-harm), and social media? Please explain your 
response.
    Answer. We care deeply about teens and take these issues incredibly 
seriously. Mental health, and self-harm and suicide in particular, are 
complex issues. We rely on the input of experts in these fields to help 
shape our approach; they tell us that some people find it helpful to 
share their experiences of mental health and get support from friends, 
family, and others in the community. Social media can also help tackle 
stigma associated with mental health. At the same time, experts tell us 
what's helpful for some may be harmful for others. It is really 
important that we find the right balance between helping protect people 
from content that has a higher likelihood of resulting in risk for them 
and allowing individuals to express themselves and seek support in 
times of need. To that end, we have specific policies about suicide and 
self-injury. While we allow people to discuss these topics because we 
want Facebook and Instagram to be a space where people can share their 
experiences, raise awareness about these issues, and seek support from 
one another, we don't allow people to post graphic suicide and self-
harm content, content that depicts methods or materials involved in 
suicide and self-harm (even if it's not graphic), or fictional content 
that promotes or encourages suicide or self-harm. In the third quarter 
of 2021, we removed over 96 percent of violating content before it was 
reported to us. As is discussed in greater detail below, we regularly 
consult with experts in suicide and self-injury to help inform our 
policies and enforcement in this area.
    For years, we've taken steps to help protect more vulnerable 
members of our community from being exposed to suicide and self-harm 
related content that is permissible under our policies, for example, if 
someone posts about their recovery journey. We remove known suicide-and 
self-harm-related posts from places where people discover new content, 
including our Explore page, and we will not recommend accounts we have 
identified as featuring suicide or self-injury content. We also remove 
certain hashtags and accounts from appearing in search. When someone 
starts typing a known hashtag or account related to suicide and self-
harm into search, we restrict these results. We add sensitivity screens 
to blur content that isn't graphic but could have a negative impact on 
someone searching. Additionally, we have a resource center that we 
developed with help from mental health partners.
    When our technology detects content that clearly violates our 
policies, it will automatically remove it without the need for human 
review. And when a post is reported by a concerned friend or family 
member or identified by machine learning as including suicide or self-
harm content, a member of Facebook's Community Operations team reviews 
the report to determine whether there are any policy violations and if 
there may be an imminent risk of self-harm--and, if so, the original 
poster is shown support options. For example, we encourage people who 
are going through a difficult time to reach out to a friend, and we 
offer pre-populated text to make it easier for people to start a 
conversation. We also suggest contacting a helpline and offer other 
tips and resources for people to help themselves in that moment. 
Additionally, in the US, if someone reported the post, that person also 
receives resources and information about how to help the person in 
distress. These resources were created in partnership with our clinical 
and academic partners.
    Finally, if our reviewers identify that someone is at immediate 
risk of harming themselves, we will contact local emergency services in 
the U.S. to get them help. We use automation so the team can more 
quickly access the appropriate first responders' contact information. 
By using technology to prioritize and streamline these reports, we are 
able to escalate the content to our Community Operations team, which 
can more quickly decide whether there are policy violations and whether 
to recommend contacting local emergency responders. Thanks to our 
technology, our Community Operations team, and as a result of reports 
from friends and family on Facebook and Instagram, we've helped first 
responders quickly reach people globally who needed help. For more 
information, please visit https://www.facebook
.com/safety/wellbeing/suicideprevention. Please note that our 
technology does not seek to determine whether an individual posting the 
content is suffering from a mental health condition.
    All of our efforts related to suicide and self-harm are informed by 
subject-matter experts from around the world. We could not do this work 
without them, which is why in 2019 we made the decision to set up a 
regular check in with experts from over 20 countries to discuss some of 
the complex issues associated with suicide and self-injury content, 
revisit decisions we have made to ensure they align with the latest 
research, and ensure we are doing our best to support all those on our 
platform. We cover a wide range of issues during these discussions, 
including how should we deal with suicide notes posted on our platform, 
what are the risks associated with viewing aggregated sad content 
online, and when should we allow newsworthy depictions of suicide. We 
also seek their input on product enhancements to foster the well-being 
of our community. For more information, please visit https://www.face
book.com/safety/wellbeing/suicideprevention/expertengagement.
    More broadly, we also work with clinical and social psychologists, 
social scientists, and sociologists, and we collaborate with top 
scholars to navigate complex issues related to well-being for users on 
Facebook and Instagram. Meta awards grants to external researchers in 
order to help us better understand how experiences on Facebook and 
Instagram relate to the safety and health of our community, including 
teen communities. And because safety and well-being isn't just a Meta 
issue, but a societal issue, we work with experts in the field to look 
at the impact of mobile technology and social media more broadly on 
youth, and how to better support them as they transition through 
different stages of life.
    We have been clear in our statements that Meta conducts research to 
understand the impact of our products and to make our products better, 
like many other large companies and especially other technology 
companies. That means our insights often shed light on problems, but 
they also inspire new ideas and changes. We evaluate possible solutions 
and work every day to make our platform a positive and safer experience 
for our community. We have a long track record of using our research--
as well as external research and close collaboration with our Safety 
Advisory Board, Youth Advisors, and additional experts and 
organizations--to inform changes to our apps and provide resources for 
the people who use them.
    We are committed to learning even more about issues related to 
well-being, and we welcome the opportunity to work with Congress and 
others in the industry to develop industry-wide standards. For example, 
Meta and the Aspen Institute have collaborated to advance the 
collective understanding of loneliness, social connection, technology 
and how they all intersect. This effort has connected more than 60 
cross-sector experts thus far--from academia, health, technology, 
nonprofits, and government--to share research and identify gaps to 
inform future research and potential solutions. In early 2021, we also 
supported the launch of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's 
Hospital, a first-of-its-kind research and innovation incubator 
bringing together science-based solutions and information about the 
effects of digital technology on our brains, bodies, and behaviors. 
Additionally, we support the bipartisan, bicameral CAMRA Act, which 
would provide funding for the National Institutes of Health to study 
the impact of technology and media on the cognitive, physical, and 
socio-emotional development of children and adolescents.

    Question 4. Has Meta performed or commissioned any studies or data 
analyses to identify suicidal ideation or predict suicide risk among 
its users? If so, identify and describe these studies.
    Answer. As discussed in the responses to your previous questions, 
we conduct research and collaborate with top scholars to navigate 
various complex issues, including those related to well-being for users 
on Facebook and Instagram. For additional information regarding our 
approach to suicide and self-injury, including our efforts to help 
protect our community, please see the response to your previous 
Question 3.

    Question 5. Is it technologically possible for Instagram to 
identify adolescent users who are experiencing depression, anxiety, 
self-harm or suicidal ideation and warn such users and/or their parents 
to seek psychological or medical help?
    Answer. Experts say that one of the best ways to help prevent a 
suicide is for people in distress to hear from others who care about 
them. Meta has a unique role to play in helping to connect people in 
distress with people who can offer support. When people post or search 
for suicide or self-injury-related content, we will direct them to 
local organizations that can provide support, and if our reviewers 
identify that someone is at immediate risk of harming themselves, we 
will contact local emergency services to get them help. We work with 
162 suicide and self-injury prevention helplines around the world. For 
more information about our detection and enforcement efforts, please 
see the response to your Question 3. For more information on our 
suicide prevention efforts, please see https://www.facebook.com/safety/
wellbeing/suicideprevention.

    Question 6. Frances Haugen testified before this Committee in 
October 2021 regarding studies performed by Facebook in 2019 
associating negative body images and eating disorders among adolescent 
girls' use of Instagram. After Instagram became aware of this hazard in 
2019, what efforts were made to warn adolescent users and their parents 
of the potential association of eating disorders and Instagram usage?
    Answer. To clarify, our research shows that Instagram helps many 
teens who are struggling with some of the hardest issues they 
experience. For difficult issues including eating issues, loneliness, 
anxiety, and sadness, teenage girls who said they experienced these 
challenges were more likely to say that Instagram made these issues 
better rather than worse. And, importantly, our research did not 
measure causal relationships between Instagram and real-world issues.
    More broadly, we prohibit any content that celebrates, encourages, 
or promotes self-injury, including eating disorders. We use technology 
and reports from our community to find and remove this content as 
quickly as we can, and we're always working to improve. In the third 
quarter of 2021, we removed about 12 million pieces of suicide and 
self-injury content (which includes eating disorder content) from 
Facebook and Instagram; we detected over 96 percent of that content 
before people reported it to us. A significant portion of that is 
detected and removed when it is uploaded. In some cases, content 
requires human review to understand the context in which material was 
posted.
    We're constantly working, including with global experts, to improve 
in this important area. For example, on Instagram, we created a 
dedicated option to report eating disorder content, making it easier to 
report violating content and provide resources to those who may be 
struggling. While people have always been able to report content 
related to eating disorders, users now see a separate, dedicated option 
to do so. In fact, we have a long track record of using research and 
close collaboration with our Safety Advisory Board, Youth Advisors, and 
additional experts and organizations to inform changes to our apps and 
provide resources for the people who use them. For more information on 
the changes we've made, please see the response to your Question 1.
    We do allow people to share their own experiences and journeys 
around self-image and body acceptance on our platforms because we know, 
and experts agree, that these stories can prompt important 
conversations and provide community support. But we also know such 
content can be triggering for some. To address this, when someone tries 
to search for or share eating disorder related content on Facebook or 
Instagram, we blur potentially triggering images and point people to 
helpful resources. Additionally, if someone tries searching for terms 
related to eating disorders, we share dedicated resources, including 
contacts for local eating disorder hotlines in certain countries. In 
the US, for example, we surface expert informed resources, including 
from the National Eating Disorder Association (``NEDA''). These 
resources will also be surfaced if someone tries sharing this content. 
Additionally, for those concerned that a person's post suggests they 
may need help with these issues, our Help Center provides information 
about eating disorders and guidance to help start a conversation with 
someone who may be struggling with eating disorders. We also provide a 
list of recommended Dos and Don'ts (developed with NEDA) for talking to 
someone about their eating disorder. We'll continue to follow expert 
advice from academics and mental health organizations, like NEDA, to 
strike the balance between allowing people to share their mental health 
experiences and helping protect them from content that may potentially 
be harmful to them.
    Additionally, for the third year in a row, we worked with NEDA to 
share programming during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week in 
the US. Throughout the week, community leaders shared Reels to 
encourage positive body image, push back against weight stigma and 
harmful stereotypes, and show that all bodies are worthy and deserve to 
be celebrated.
    We are taking steps to protect users on Instagram from being 
exposed to content that is permissible (but possibly triggering) by 
making it harder to find. We remove such posts from places where people 
discover new content, including in our Explore page, and we are not 
recommending accounts identified as featuring suicide or self-injury 
content. In addition, when someone starts typing a known hashtag or 
account related to suicide and self-harm into search, we are also 
working to restrict results. And our Help Center provides information 
about eating disorders and how to support someone who may be struggling 
with these issues.
    We don't want anyone on Instagram to feel marginalized, 
particularly people with eating disorders or body image issues. While 
we already work in partnership with experts to understand how to 
support those affected by eating disorders, there's always more we can 
learn. That's why we're hosting feedback sessions with community 
leaders and experts globally to learn more about emerging issues in the 
eating disorders space and new approaches for offering support.

    Question 7. What steps has Meta taken to allow access to 
Instagram's user data to academic researchers for the purposes of 
studying the mental health effects on its user base, in particular, 
children and young adults? Please explain these steps in detail.
    Answer. We offer researchers a number of privacy-protective methods 
to collect and analyze data. We welcome research that holds us 
accountable and doesn't compromise the security of our platform or the 
privacy of the people who use it. That's why we created tools like the 
Ad Library and launched initiatives like Data for Good and Facebook 
Open Research and Transparency (``FORT'')--to provide privacy-protected 
APIs and data sets for the academic community. FORT aims to provide 
academics and independent researchers with the tools and data they need 
to study Facebook's impact on the world. These include the FORT 
Researcher Platform, which provides a secure way for academics to 
access Facebook data in a privacy-protective environment.
    Meta researchers have published and shared hundreds of papers in 
2021 alone. We will continue to work to publish research externally and 
to engage and collaborate with experts, including in data-sharing with 
researchers on issues related to young people. For example, we have 
ongoing relationships with groups like the Aspen Institute and the 
Humanity Center, and we are a founding sponsor of the Digital Wellness 
Lab run jointly by Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital. 
We also collaborated with independent academics around the U.S. 2020 
elections; we will take the methodology from the U.S. 2020 program and 
apply it to well-being research. This will involve collaborative co-
design of studies and peer reviewed publication of findings.
    We know there is interest in the way our platforms operate and the 
steps we take to improve them. We don't shy away from that scrutiny, 
and we are working to find an appropriate path forward when it comes to 
communicating about our research in a way that allows us to continue to 
promote full and frank discussion while also respecting the privacy of 
our users.

    Mandatory Arbitration. Instagram's terms of service contain a 
mandatory arbitration clause that requires users to arbitrate their 
claims and give up their right to participate in a class action.
    These terms apply to users of all ages. There have been reports, 
including in Washington state, of minor children being contacted 
through Meta's platform by strangers who lure them into sex trafficking 
or providing explicit information and images--sometimes via Meta's 
platform(s) and sometimes using Meta services to make initial contact 
before moving to other channels.

    Question 1. Is it Meta's position that the arbitration and class 
action provision apply to minors?
    Answer. At Meta, we take the issue of safety and well-being on our 
platforms very seriously, especially for the youngest people who use 
our services. As per our terms, in the US, we require people to be at 
least 13 years old to sign up for Facebook and Instagram. Instagram's 
Terms of Use are applicable to all people when they create an Instagram 
account or use Instagram.
    When we become aware of content that violates our human trafficking 
policy, we remove it, and, where appropriate, we refer content to 
relevant authorities, including the National Center for Missing and 
Exploited Children (``NCMEC'') as required by law. We also respond to 
law enforcement requests related to sex trafficking. We engage with 
agencies across the world that are dedicated to combatting sex 
trafficking and help inform prevention efforts on our services. We have 
developed strong relationships with NCMEC, the International Center for 
Missing and Exploited Children (``ICMEC''), Internet Watch Foundation, 
ECPAT International, Polaris, the U.S. Department of Health and Human 
Services' Office of Child Support Enforcement, and other NGOs to 
disrupt and prevent sex trafficking online.
    We also prohibit content that endangers or seeks to sexually 
exploit children through inappropriate interactions, such as obtaining 
or requesting sexual material from children in messages, arranging or 
planning real world sexual encounters with children, grooming or 
purposefully exposing children to sexually explicit language or sexual 
material, or engaging in implicitly sexual conversations in messages 
with children.

    Question 2. Has Meta ever sought to enforce the arbitration and 
class action provision with respect to a minor? If yes, how many times?
    Answer. We are aware of at least one case that appears to fit the 
criteria stated in your Question. This case does not involve sexual 
exploitation of a minor.

    Question 3. Has Meta ever agreed to a confidential settlement--
whether in arbitration or court--of any claim for damages arising from 
an allegation that a child using any of its products, including 
Instagram, was harmed by Meta's action or inaction? If so, please 
describe each such settlement, including the alleged harm and the year 
of the settlement.
    Answer. Based on a reasonable review of recently filed litigation 
matters, Meta has not settled claims alleging that its products caused 
physical harm or injury to a user under age 18.

    Digital Advertising. A class action complaint against Facebook (now 
Meta) alleged that the company purported it could run ads with a 
Potential Reach that exceeded the U.S. Census Bureau's population count 
of 18- to 34-year-olds in each of the 50 states.

    Question 1. Does an ad's estimated Potential Reach (or ``Instagram 
Reach'' or similar metric) impact the price of the ad? Please describe 
the relationship between Potential Reach and similar metrics and the 
price of ads.
    Answer. Generally, advertisers are charged based on the number of 
clicks or the number of impressions their ads receive. Meta provides 
pre-campaign estimates to help advertisers understand (i) the estimated 
number of people who meet the targeting (or audience selection) and ad 
placement criteria they select or (ii) how many people they may be able 
to reach and how many results (e.g., conversions) they can get each 
day, based on their selected criteria, budget, and performance. 
Historically, these included Potential Reach, Estimated Daily Results, 
and--if using interest targeting categories--an estimate of the number 
of people who are associated with particular interest categories based 
on their activities on Facebook. Meta does not charge advertisers based 
on pre-campaign estimates.
    In order to make the presentation of these pre-campaign estimates 
consistent, Meta recently changed Potential Reach and interests into 
ranges instead of specific numbers, which is how Estimated Daily 
Results were already presented. Ranges are also in line with how pre-
campaign estimates are presented on other platforms across the 
advertising industry. As part of this update, Meta changed the name of 
Potential Reach to Estimated Audience Size.
    Estimated Audience Size generally estimates a range of how many 
people meet the targeting and ad placement criteria that advertisers 
select while creating an ad. Estimated Audience Size is a directional 
tool to understand how advertisers' targeting choices affect target 
audience size. Estimates are provided in the Ads Manager interface and 
update in real time during the ad creation experience as advertisers 
input and modify their targeting and placement criteria, and the number 
of people who meet an advertiser's selected targeting and placement 
criteria depends on many factors, including user activity, and will 
change over time. Meta discloses to advertisers that Estimated Audience 
Size uses a methodology that considers many factors, such as:

   Ad targeting criteria and placement locations;

   How many people were shown ads on Meta apps and services in 
        the past 30 days;

   What content people interact with on Meta apps and services 
        (such as liking a Page);

   Self-reported demographics like age and gender; and

   Where people see ads (for example, in a Facebook News Feed 
        or Instagram Stories).

    As Meta discloses to advertisers, Estimated Audience Size may vary 
over time and should not be interpreted as the number of people who 
will actually view particular ads. The estimated range provided may not 
include the number of people who meet the targeting and placement 
criteria in some instances. Estimated Audience Size is not a proxy for 
monthly or daily active users or engagement. (Meta's quarterly earnings 
announcements provide this information.) Estimates are not designed to 
match population, census estimates, or other sources and may differ 
depending on factors such as:

   How many Meta apps and services accounts a person has;

   How many temporary visitors are in a particular geographic 
        location at a given time; and

   Meta user-reported demographics.

    Meta has a number of systems in place to detect and remove fake 
accounts. Meta discloses to advertisers that, in some cases, the 
presence of fake accounts may also have some impact on unique estimates 
like Estimated Audience Size.
    In addition, in cases where a person's Facebook and Instagram 
accounts are linked in Accounts Center, their Facebook and Instagram 
accounts will be counted collectively as a single account for ads 
estimation purposes. If a person's Facebook and Instagram accounts are 
not connected in Accounts Center, their accounts will be counted as 
multiple accounts for ads estimation purposes.
    The number of people a campaign actually ends up reaching depends 
on an advertiser's budget and an ad's performance, which are not 
factors that are considered in Estimated Audience Size. If there is 
enough data available, Meta provides advertisers Estimated Daily 
Results, which are pre-campaign predictions about how many people 
advertisers can reach (``Estimated Daily Reach'') and how many results 
they can get (``Estimated Daily Results'') per day if they spend their 
full budget (for a daily budget) or are scheduled to (for a lifetime 
budget).
    Estimated Daily Reach and Estimated Daily Results depend on factors 
like bid, budget, targeting and ad placement criteria, and campaign 
performance. Estimated Daily Results appears in the Ads Manager 
interface where advertisers create their ads contemporaneously with and 
immediately below Estimated Audience Size. Meta shows advertisers an 
Estimated Daily Reach range as well as a range of Estimated Daily 
Results specific to their chosen campaign objective. Estimated Daily 
Results updates in real time as the advertiser enters or refines its 
targeting criteria, placement choices, bid, and budget. The predictions 
are a way to help advertisers understand what results they might get, 
before having to spend any money. Additional information on Estimated 
Daily Results can be found here: https://www.facebook
.com/business/help/1438142206453359?id=561906377587030.
    Meta provides two main buying types for advertisements: (1) auction 
buying and (2) Reach & Frequency buying. While auction buying is 
available to all advertisers and used by most advertisers, Reach & 
Frequency buying only is available to qualified advertisers.
    For advertisers who use auction buying, the price of Meta ads is 
based on an auction where ads compete for ad impressions based on bid 
and performance. Each time there is an opportunity to show an ad to 
someone, an auction takes place to determine which ad to show to that 
person. Using information provided by advertisers in the ads creation 
process, including the advertiser's budget, the auction determines 
which of the ads in the auction is most likely to maximize total value 
for the advertiser and the user--for the price the advertiser bids or 
less, and never higher. The winner of the auction is the ad with the 
highest total value, which is determined based on the bid placed by an 
advertiser for that ad and the ad relevance. Advertisers are in control 
of how much they spend: they control the overall amount they spend 
through their budget and their cost per result through their bid 
strategy. When an advertiser runs an ad, they are only charged for the 
number of clicks or the number of impressions the ad received. Meta 
provides information to advertisers during and after their campaigns 
about the performance of their ads and recommends that advertisers view 
their results during their campaigns to help them understand the 
results they are getting and to make adjustments to their campaign as 
needed. Additional information on Meta's ad auction system can be found 
here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/
430291176997542?id=561906377587030. Advertisers are not charged based 
on their Potential Reach or Estimated Daily Results estimates.
    Reach and Frequency is an alternative method for buying ads on Meta 
that allows advertisers to book campaigns in advance with predictable, 
optimized reach and controlled frequency. Reach and Frequency allows an 
advertiser to specify the number of times their audience will see their 
ads, the days they see the ads, the times of day they see the ads, and 
the order in which they see the ads. Reach and frequency advertisers 
pay a fixed cost per 1,000 impressions (``CPM'') based on the 
advertiser's chosen audience details and their budget. Once a campaign 
order is placed, the CPM an advertiser pays for impressions will not 
change, provided the campaign is not paused.

    Question 2. In what ways can an advertiser on Meta's platforms 
verify the Potential Reach or similar metric of its advertising? What 
data does Meta make available to provide advertisers assurance that the 
reported reach is accurate? Does Meta use independent third parties to 
verify the Potential Reach metrics and methods or similar advertising 
metrics or methods? If so, please list the third parties and provide a 
copy of any reports issued.
    Answer. Please see the response to your Question 1. As noted in 
that response, Estimated Audience Size and Estimated Daily Results are 
pre-campaign estimates, meaning they are estimates provided to 
advertisers before they publish an ad and the ad begins to run (as 
distinct from reported metrics once an ad is running). Estimated 
Audience Size is a directional tool to help advertisers understand how 
their targeting choices affect target audience size and is not an 
estimate of how many people will see an ad. Estimated Daily Results are 
a way to understand what results an advertiser could get before having 
to spend any money. As Meta discloses to advertisers, confidence in the 
estimations can be affected by factors such as volatility in the 
performance of an ad and whether or not an advertiser's entire budget 
will be spent.
    Estimated Audience Size is classified as an estimated metric, 
meaning that it is derived through statistical sampling or modeling 
rather than a straight count. Meta explains to advertisers that 
sampling lets Meta look at a portion of data that represents a larger 
population included in an entire set of data.
    Like Estimated Audience Size, Meta tells advertisers that Estimated 
Daily Results, including Estimated Daily Reach, are estimated and 
sampled metrics. For example, to generate Estimated Daily Reach, Meta 
uses internal data to identify a sampling of people who generated ad 
impressions and who meet the targeting and placement criteria that an 
advertiser has entered into Ads Manager and runs a simulation to 
estimate how many people an advertiser might reach per day.
    These pre-campaign estimates are based on data available to Meta. 
Meta does not use third parties to verify its pre-campaign estimates, 
which are neither reported nor billed.
    Once advertisers launch an ad campaign, Meta provides them with 
real-time, actual results that the advertisers can use to assess their 
ads' performance, including on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience 
Network, and to compare performance to prior campaign results or the 
advertisers' own data (if any). This data reflects the results an ad is 
receiving and is available to advertisers on Meta's Ads Manager. 
Impressions from certain placements are accredited by the Media Rating 
Council.

    Question 3. Identify every instance in which Meta previously 
learned of inaccuracy in its Potential Reach metric (or ``Instagram 
Reach'' or similar metric). In doing so, please describe the nature of 
the inaccuracy, and the correction, if any, that Meta took to address 
the inaccuracy.
    Answer. Please see the responses to your Questions 1 and 2. 
Estimated Audience Size is an estimated range of the number of people 
who meet the targeting and ad placement criteria an advertiser selects. 
It varies over time, and it is not an estimate of how many people will 
see an ad. Estimated Daily Results, including Estimated Daily Reach, 
are also pre-campaign estimates, and an ad's actual results will depend 
on numerous other factors once an ad begins running. These estimates 
are not exact calculations or guarantees of an ad's performance.
    Meta endeavors to continually maintain, evolve, and improve its 
product offerings to users (including advertisers), including 
directional estimate tools like Estimated Audience Size and Estimated 
Daily Reach. Over the past several years, Meta has made modifications 
to Estimated Audience Size (previously Potential Reach), and it has 
updated its disclosures to advertisers to explain improvements and 
provide even more transparency. Meta also monitors the estimates for 
bugs or other issues in Meta's data pipelines that may affect the 
estimates.
    In 2017, Meta received press reports about differences between 
Estimated Audience Size (then called Potential Reach) and governmental 
census estimates. While Estimated Audience Size estimates how many 
people within specified Meta platforms meet the targeting and ad 
placement criteria that advertisers select while creating an ad, the 
census counts how many people are included in a given population. Each 
government conducts its census differently, with varying accuracy 
depending on the country's methodology. These distinctions give rise to 
differences between these measurements.
    Meta has also identified other factors that may cause the estimates 
to differ from population, census estimates, or other sources, 
including: (1) how many Meta apps and services accounts a person has; 
(2) how many temporary visitors are in a particular geographic location 
at a given time; and (3) user-reported demographics.
    Meta has made a number of updates to its description of Estimated 
Audience Size (previously Potential Reach) to provide even more 
information to advertisers:

   Estimated Audience Size (1) is not designed to match 
        population, census estimates, or other sources; (2) updates in 
        real time based on a methodology that considers factors like ad 
        targeting criteria and placement locations, how many people 
        were shown ads on Meta apps and services in the past 30 days, 
        what content people interact with on Meta apps and services 
        (such as liking a Page), self-reported demographics like age 
        and gender, and where people see ads; and (3) may differ 
        depending on factors such as how many Meta apps and services 
        accounts a person has, how many temporary visitors are in a 
        particular geographic location at a given time, and Meta user-
        reported demographics.

   Meta may count a user's actions separately if they have more 
        than one account and take actions (such as liking photos or 
        adding comments) on the separate accounts.

   In cases where a person has connected their Facebook and 
        Instagram accounts in Accounts Center, their Facebook and 
        Instagram accounts will be counted collectively as a single 
        account for ads estimation purposes. If a person, however, has 
        not connected their Facebook and Instagram accounts in Accounts 
        Center, their accounts will be counted as multiple accounts for 
        ads estimation purposes.

   Meta has a number of systems in place to detect and remove 
        fake accounts, but in some cases, the presence of fake accounts 
        may have some impact on unique metrics, such as potential reach 
        estimates.

    In addition, prior to March 2019, Estimated Audience Size was 
estimated based on data reflecting people who were active on Meta's 
platforms and were eligible to see an ad over the immediately preceding 
30-day period. In March 2019, Meta changed how it calculated Estimated 
Audience Size to base it on how many people who match the advertiser's 
selected audience and placement criteria have been shown an ad on a 
Meta product in the past 30 days. This change did not impact an 
advertiser's actual target audience, delivery results, or how it is 
charged for ads; it only impacted the Estimated Audience Size 
estimates.
    Most recently, in order to make the presentation of these pre-
campaign estimates consistent, Meta changed Potential Reach into ranges 
instead of specific numbers, which is how Estimated Daily Results were 
already presented. As part of this update, Meta changed the name of 
Potential Reach to Estimated Audience Size.

    Question 4. Describe all research Meta has conducted on the 
accuracy Potential Reach (or ``Instagram Reach'' or similar metric) and 
the financial or other harm that inaccuracies in such metrics has (or 
potentially has) on advertisers.
    Answer. Please see the responses to your Questions 1, 2, and 3. 
Advertisers are not charged based on the Estimated Audience Size. 
Instead, Estimated Audience Size is meant to help advertisers 
understand how their targeting and placement choices affect the size of 
their target audience. Advertisers are not charged based on those pre-
campaign estimates of the size of a target audience. Rather, 
advertisers are charged based on the number of clicks or the number of 
impressions their ads received.

    Question 5. What percentage of Meta's revenue comes from 
advertising?
    Answer. Meta generates substantially all of its revenue from 
selling advertising placements to third parties. Our total revenue for 
the past five years and the percentage of which came from third-party 
ads is disclosed in our public SEC filings, and provided below.

   2021: $117.929 billion (97 percent from third-party ads)

   2020: $85.965 billion (98 percent from third-party ads)

   2019: $70.697 billion (98.5 percent from third-party ads)

   2018: $55.838 billion (98.5 percent from third-party ads)

   2017: $40.653 billion (98 percent from third-party ads)

    Question 6. What representations does Meta make to advertisers 
regarding brand safety?
    Answer. Brand safety allows advertisers to control where their ads 
are delivered on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Audience Network. 
We offer several brand safety controls for preventing ads from running 
alongside certain types of content on Audience Network, Facebook, and 
Instagram. These controls include:

   Placement Controls. When they create an ad, advertisers can 
        choose where they want their ad to appear on Facebook, 
        Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network. They can also opt 
        out of specific placements if they don't want their ads to run 
        within those environments.

   Inventory Filter. Inventory Filter gives advertisers an 
        extra layer of control over sensitive content, allowing them to 
        choose Full Inventory, Standard Inventory, or Limited Inventory 
        on Facebook Instant Articles, Facebook in-stream video, 
        Facebook overlay ads in Reels, Instagram in-stream video, and 
        Audience Network. Inventory Filter allows advertisers to 
        control the type of content their ad appears within. Remember 
        that only apps, Facebook Pages, and Instagram accounts that 
        comply with our policies can be part of these placements in the 
        first place.

   Topic Exclusions for Facebook In-Stream Videos. By excluding 
        specific topics, advertisers can choose which published 
        Facebook in-stream videos they want their ads to display on. 
        Advertisers can choose content-level exclusions from four 
        different topics: news, politics, gaming, and religious and 
        spiritual content.

   Content Type Exclusions. On the Facebook in-stream video 
        placement, ads can appear in partner live streams or videos 
        claimed by rights holders.

   Live Streams. Advertisers can prevent Facebook in-stream 
        video ads from appearing in live videos.

   Videos Claimed by Rights Holders. Advertisers can stop 
        Facebook in-stream video ads from appearing in videos that were 
        published by non-partners but are being monetized by the rights 
        holders.

   Block Lists. Block Lists prevent ads from running on 
        specific publishers within Audience Network, Facebook in-stream 
        videos, Facebook Instant Articles, Instagram in-stream videos, 
        and Facebook overlay ads in Reels.

   Publisher Allow Lists. A publisher allow list is a list of 
        Audience Network, Instagram in-stream, and Facebook in-stream 
        video publishers that advertisers choose for their ads to 
        appear on.

   Content Allow List. Content allow lists give advertisers the 
        ability to work with trusted Meta Business Partners to review 
        and customize lists of brand suitable videos for running 
        Facebook in-stream video campaigns.

   Publisher Lists. Our publisher list details the URLs where 
        we could place an ad on Audience Network, Facebook in-stream 
        videos, Facebook Instant Articles, Instagram in-stream videos, 
        and Facebook overlay ads in Reels. Advertisers can download the 
        list and review the list, then copy chosen URLs into block 
        lists or publisher allow lists. They can also search, sort and 
        filter publishers in the Brand Safety Controls interface to 
        spot check publishers without downloading the full publisher 
        list.

   Delivery Reports. Delivery reports provide advertisers with 
        access to impression level data at the publisher and content 
        levels, giving greater transparency into which individual 
        pieces of content their ads were embedded.

    Advertisers can use these controls in combination or on their own. 
We also enforce Community Standards for the content individuals and 
publishers can share. More information on Meta's brand safety approach 
and controls can be found here:

   https://www.facebook.com/business/help/
        1559334364175848?id=176915609319
        7771;

   https://www.facebook.com/business/help/
        1926878614264962?id=176915609319
        7771;

   https://www.facebook.com/business/good-questions/safety;

   https://www.facebook.com/business/help/
        2116031745379221?id=176915609319
        7771; and

   https://www.facebook.com/business/news/introducing-more-
        control-for-brands-and-people-in-feed.

    Question 7. In what ways can an advertiser on Meta's platforms 
verify Meta's brand safety claims? What data does Meta make available 
to provide advertisers assurance that brand safety promises are kept? 
Does Meta use independent third parties to verify that its brand safety 
promises are kept? If so, please list the third parties and provide a 
copy of any reports issued.
    Answer.
   Community Standards Enforcement Report--As part of our 
        continued commitment to transparency, we publish our Community 
        Standards Enforcement Report on a quarterly basis detailing our 
        progress in preventing and/or taking action against content 
        that violates our policies. We measure the prevalence of 
        violating content to gauge how we're performing against that 
        goal. Reports can be found at https://transparency.fb.com/. In 
        2020, we committed to undergoing an independent evaluation of 
        our Community Standards Enforcement Report to validate that our 
        metrics are measured and reported correctly. We have selected 
        Ernst & Young to assess the metrics shared in our 2021 fourth 
        quarter report, and we plan to share the results in Spring of 
        2022.

   MRC Accreditation--In July 2020, we began our work and audit 
        with the Media Rating Council (``MRC'') to seek accreditation 
        of our Partner and Content Monetization Policies and Brand 
        Safety and Suitability controls. This audit is underway with 
        results expected to be published in the first half of 2022.

   Oversight Board--We established an Oversight Board with 
        independent judgment to help Facebook answer some of the most 
        significant and difficult questions around freedom of 
        expression online: what to take down, what to leave up, and 
        why. Additional information can be found here: https://
        transparency.fb
        .com/oversight/.

   Trustworthy Accountability Group--On September 10, 2020, the 
        Trustworthy Accountability Group (``TAG''), a global program in 
        digital advertising, announced Facebook in their inaugural TAG 
        Brand Safety Certified Program. With the completion of our 2020 
        audit, our certification now continues under the new TAG seal 
        and is expanded from the United Kingdom (``UK'')--only to a 
        global certification. On September 23, 2020, Facebook was 
        awarded the Internet Advertising Bureau (``IAB UK'') Gold 
        Standard 2.0.

   Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (``JICWEBS'')--In 
        September 2019, Facebook successfully completed the JICWEBS 
        Digital Trading Standards Group's brand safety audit. As a 
        result, Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network were listed 
        as Digital Trading Standards Group (``DTSG'') brand safety 
        certified for demonstrating commitment to brand protection and 
        taking steps to reduce the risk of unsafe ad placements.

   Partnership with industry leading bodies--We continue to 
        work with industry bodies and other tech platforms, like the 
        Global Alliance for Responsible Media (``GARM''), to share 
        knowledge, build consensus and help make all platforms safer 
        for people and advertisers.

   Third-Party Brand Safety Partners--Advertisers can also work 
        with third parties to manage their brand safety controls for 
        their campaigns. The Meta Business Partner Brand Safety program 
        recognizes companies offering proprietary solutions that can 
        help advertisers review content options and control where their 
        ads will appear. Additional information can be found here: 
        https://www
        .facebook.com/business/partner-directory/
        search?solution_type=measurement&
        capabilities=Brand%20Safety.

   Third-Party Fact-Checking Partners--Because we want people 
        to see accurate information and because misinformation can be 
        harmful to our community, we work hard to fight it. To that 
        end, Meta prohibits ads that include claims debunked by third-
        party fact checkers or, in certain circumstances, claims 
        debunked by organizations with particular expertise. 
        Advertisers that repeatedly post information deemed to be false 
        may have restrictions placed on their ability to advertise. 
        Meta works with independent, International Fact-Checking 
        Network certified fact-checkers who identify, review, and rate 
        viral misinformation across our platforms. We rely on 
        independent fact-checkers to review and rate the accuracy of 
        stories through original reporting, which may include 
        interviewing primary sources, consulting public data, and 
        conducting analyses of media, including photos and videos.

    Each time a fact-checker rates a piece of content as false on our 
        platforms, we significantly reduce that content's distribution 
        so that fewer people see it, label it accordingly, and notify 
        people who try to share it. Fact-checkers do not remove 
        content, accounts, or Pages from our apps. We remove content 
        when it violates our Community Standards, which are separate 
        from our fact-checking programs.

    Please see the response to your Question 6. Additional information 
on how advertisers can manage and evaluate brand safety settings is 
available here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/
297590664193809?id=1769156093197771.

    Question 8. Meta states that it restricts a variety of advertising 
content on its platforms, including content relating to alcohol, 
gambling, and other age-inappropriate categories. To do so, it relies 
on a Facebook ad review system that primarily uses automated tools to 
ensure that inappropriate content does not reach those under the age of 
18. Has Meta ever studied, or is Meta aware of any studies, that have 
determined the accuracy of these automated tools? If so, identify and 
provide copies of the studies and their results. In addition, describe 
what actions, if any, Meta took in response to such studies and 
results.
    Answer. As your Question recognizes, our Advertising Policies 
restrict certain content based on age. Ads targeted to minors must not 
promote products, services, or content that are inappropriate, illegal, 
or unsafe, or that exploit, mislead, or exert undue pressure on the age 
groups targeted. Ads that promote or reference alcohol, for instance, 
must only be targeted to people 21 years or older in the US. Similarly, 
any ads marketing weight loss products and services, cosmetic 
procedures, gambling, or dating services, among other topics, must be 
targeted to people 18 years or older at a minimum. If someone whom Meta 
knows is under a certain age and attempts to view a Page or account 
with an age restriction, they will be blocked from viewing it.
    Additionally, in 2021, we began limiting advertisers' ability to 
target ads to people under 18 (or older in certain countries), allowing 
them only to target based on their age, gender, and location. This 
means that previously available targeting options for users under 18, 
like those based on interests or on their activity on other apps and 
websites, are no longer available to advertisers. These changes are 
global and apply to Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. When young 
people become adults, we notify them about targeting options that 
advertisers can now use to reach them and the tools we provide to them 
to control their ad experience.
    We have several mechanisms for advertisers and Page admins to 
control the audience eligible to view the content they produce. When an 
advertiser decides to create an ad, we provide age and location 
targeting options during the ad creation process. The advertiser must 
comply with our Advertising Policies and any applicable local laws, and 
they can do so, for example, by specifying that their ads be shown only 
to users that meet a minimum age or are located in a specific country. 
Page admins can also use age restrictions to limit the audience of 
their Page.
    When it comes to detection and enforcement, our advertising review 
system is designed to review all ads before they go live, including 
those related to alcohol, weight loss products, gambling, and other 
restricted topics. This system relies primarily on automated technology 
to apply our Advertising Policies to the millions of ads that run 
across our apps. While our review is largely automated, we rely on our 
teams to build and train these systems, and in some cases, to manually 
review ads. For additional information, please see: https://
www.facebook.com/business/news/facebook-ad-policy-process-and-review.
    Ad review is typically completed within 24 hours, but it may take 
longer, and ads can be reviewed again, including after they're live. 
Based on the results of the review, an ad is either rejected or allowed 
to run. If an ad is rejected, an advertiser can create a new ad--either 
with new ad creative or by revising the rejected ad--or request another 
review if they believe their ad was incorrectly rejected. Unlike the 
initial ad review, we rely more heavily on teams of human reviewers to 
process re-review requests from advertisers, but we are continuously 
assessing ways to increase automation.
    We also have reporting, authenticity, and transparency features to 
encourage advertiser accountability. People can report ads they believe 
violate our policies by clicking the three dots in the upper right hand 
corner of the ad. These reports are an important signal for our 
advertising review systems and may prompt a re-review of the ad. This 
feedback also helps to improve our policies and enforcement.
    Beyond reviewing individual ads, we may also review and investigate 
advertiser behavior, like the number of previous ad rejections and the 
severity of the type of violation, including attempts to get around our 
advertising review process. Advertisers who violate our policies may 
have actions taken against them, including losing the ability to run 
ads.
    Reviewing ads from millions of advertisers globally against our 
Advertising Policies can be challenging. Our enforcement isn't perfect, 
and both machines and people make mistakes. When we launch a new 
policy, it can take time for the various parts of our enforcement 
system, both automated technology and trained global teams, to learn 
how to correctly and consistently enforce the new standard, but as we 
gather new data and feedback, our machine learning models, our 
automated enforcement, and our manual review teams improve. We 
regularly assess and continue to make improvements to our review system 
to improve our detection of ads that violate our policies and to help 
protect young people from seeing inappropriate ads. We make changes 
based on trends in the ads ecosystem and adjust for new tactics that we 
find from people misusing the platform.

    Question 9. Can advertisers on Instagram direct ads to users of a 
specific gender, age, or sexual orientation?
    Answer. We strongly believe that the best advertising experiences 
are personalized. They enable people to discover products and services 
from small businesses that may not have the ability to market them on 
broadcast television or other forms of media. They also enable 
nonprofits, social causes, and organizations to reach the people most 
likely to support and benefit from them, such as connecting people to 
fundraisers for charitable causes they care about.
    At the same time, we want to better match people's evolving 
expectations of how advertisers may reach them on our platform and 
address feedback from civil rights experts, policymakers, and other 
stakeholders on the importance of preventing advertisers from abusing 
the targeting options we make available.
    Meta's ads generally allow marketers to select audiences for their 
ads based on a variety of factors including age, gender, location, 
interests, and behaviors. These audience selection (or targeting) tools 
are not available for ads related to housing, employment, and credit. 
Recently, we also announced specific changes to detailed targeting 
options.
    As of January 19, 2022, we remove detailed targeting options that 
relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive, such as options 
referencing causes, organizations, or public figures that relate to 
health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual 
orientation. Examples include:

   Health causes (e.g., ``Lung cancer awareness,'' ``World 
        Diabetes Day,'' ``Chemotherapy'')

   Sexual orientation (e.g., ``same-sex marriage'' and ``LGBT 
        culture'')

   Religious practices and groups (e.g., ``Catholic Church'' 
        and ``Jewish holidays'')

   Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and 
        figures

    Additionally, we give people ways to tell us that they would rather 
not see ads based on their interests or on their activities on other 
websites and apps, such as through controls within our ad settings. We 
also know that young people may not be well equipped to make these 
decisions on their own, which is why we take a more precautionary 
approach. In 2021, we began limiting advertisers' ability to target ads 
to people under 18 (or older in certain countries), allowing them only 
to target based on their age, gender, and location. This means that 
previously available targeting options for users under 18, like those 
based on interests or on their activity on other apps and websites, are 
no longer available to advertisers. These changes are global and apply 
to Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. When young people become adults, 
we notify them about targeting options that advertisers can now use to 
reach them and the tools we provide to them to control their ad 
experience.

    Question 10. Does a user's gender play any role, directly or 
indirectly, in the content or advertising displayed to the user?
    Answer. Please see the response to Question 9 about ad targeting 
options available to advertisers when selecting audiences for their 
ads. Ads are ranked for delivery using different sets of machine 
learning models that are constantly learning and changing. There are 
hundreds of models that use billions of data points, including gender. 
The machine learning models are only one part of the ads delivery 
process. Before ranked ads are delivered to a particular user, they 
compete against each other in an auction and against other content, 
such as posts from friends and family, for the limited space available 
in user News Feeds and other placements. As a result, no single input 
is determinative of the delivery of a particular ad to a particular 
user, let alone of how an ad is ranked. Accordingly, we do not believe 
it is accurate to characterize gender as ``playing a role'' in what is 
displayed to users, but provide this information in the interest of 
transparency.
                                 ______
                                 
 Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Richard Blumenthal to 
                              Adam Mosseri
    Requirements for internal audits. Technology companies should not 
be allowed to put products on the market without knowing they are safe. 
While Facebook and Instagram were doing research on teen mental health, 
they hid the research and results from parents and stonewalled 
Congress. Under the U.K.'s Children's Code, Instagram is now required 
to conduct impact assessments on risks to children.

    Question 1. Does Instagram support extending the U.K.'s Children's 
Code's self-assessment obligation to the United States? If not, please 
explain why not.
    Answer. Meta recognizes the Age Appropriate Design Code (``AADC'') 
as a valuable source of guidance in the global approach to youth and 
the potential value of a U.S. equivalent. The privacy, safety, and 
well-being of young people on our platforms are essential to our 
services, and the AADC is one of the inputs that informs the expansive 
work we do every day to protect the safety and privacy of young people 
using our apps globally. We welcome the ``best interests of the child 
approach'' and support a holistic view of the best interests of the 
child standard in assessing the appropriateness of specific practices 
and in product development. We believe that adopting principles-based 
approaches that are consistent across different jurisdictions is 
necessary to enable effective and scalable technology-driven solutions 
to protect young people online globally.
    In the past several years, we've reflected on the AADC and 
incorporated the standards as a starting point to develop internal 
guidance on designing our products and features with youth in mind. 
Meta has also leveraged the AADC, in addition to other guidance from 
around the world, to improve internal structures and help product teams 
ensure the best interest standard is directly embedded in the product 
development process.
    The reality is that keeping young people safe online is not just 
about one company. We continue to welcome productive collaboration with 
lawmakers and elected officials. Regulatory frameworks like the AADC 
underpin the work we're doing to create privacy and safety standards 
for building youth products at Meta. In fact, we believe there should 
be an industry body that will determine best practices when it comes to 
at least three questions: how to verify age, how to design age-
appropriate experiences, and how to build parental controls. This body 
should receive input from civil society, parents, and regulators to 
create standards that are high and protections that are universal. And 
we believe that companies like ours should have to adhere to these 
standards to earn some of our Section 230 protections. In addition, the 
body could take steps to require each member to publish regular reports 
on the progress they are making against each standard and to develop a 
free and accessible information hub for parents and educators. This 
proposal is a work in progress, but we hope that it will contribute to 
the ongoing discussion about how appropriate regulation can help us 
address these critical issues. In the meantime, we will continue to 
push forward on safety and well-being for young people online.

    Question 2. Please list all internal audits or assessments about 
the efficacy of the measures Instagram currently takes to protect kids. 
If none, please explain why not, as this is now required under U.K. 
law.
    Answer. We are constantly reassessing our approach to children's 
privacy to ensure that we're designing age-appropriate products and 
experiences for youth. On all products, including Instagram, internal 
assessments help us ensure that our approach is appropriate and 
effective. As previously noted, the internal guidance we've developed 
for product teams on designing products and features with youth in mind 
leverage the AADC, but they are also shaped by and reflect the 
expertise of internal and external child safety, policy, and privacy 
specialists.
    Meta has also established a significant cross-functional and cross-
jurisdictional team who are focused on addressing youth-related 
regulatory requirements, including the AADC. This team consists of 
approximately 500 people from a wide variety of teams within the 
company, including Product; Engineering; Legal; Policy (Safety, 
Privacy, and Public); Communications; Marketing; and Research. The work 
from this cross-functional team informs both existing product changes 
and new product development for youth.

    Access for independent researchers. Mr. Mosseri, you testified that 
``there should be requirements and standards for how companies like 
ours are transparent about both data and algorithms.'' Qualified, 
independent researchers not funded by an industry body should be able 
to study and assess the impact that Instagram has on children and teens 
without onerous barriers.

    Question 3. How does Instagram currently support requests regarding 
access to its datasets and information about its algorithms from any 
independent researcher (i.e., any academic or civil society researcher 
who is not an employee of or subcontractor for Instagram) that wishes 
to study children and teens' mental health and well-being?
    Answer. We offer researchers a number of privacy-protective methods 
to collect and analyze data. We welcome research that holds us 
accountable and doesn't compromise the security of our platform or the 
privacy of the people who use it. That's why we created tools like the 
Ad Library and launched initiatives like Data for Good and Facebook 
Open Research and Transparency (``FORT'')--to provide privacy-protected 
APIs and data sets for the academic community. FORT aims to provide 
academics and independent researchers with the tools and data they need 
to study Facebook's impact on the world. These include the FORT 
Researcher Platform, which provides a secure way for academics to 
access Facebook data in a privacy-protective environment.
    Meta researchers have published and shared hundreds of papers in 
2021 alone. We will continue to work to publish research externally and 
to engage and collaborate with experts, including in data-sharing with 
researchers on issues related to young people. For example, we have 
ongoing relationships with groups like the Aspen Institute and the 
Humanity Center, and we are a founding sponsor of the Digital Wellness 
Lab run jointly by Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital. 
We also collaborated with independent academics around the U.S. 2020 
elections; we will take the methodology from the U.S. 2020 program and 
apply it to well-being research. This will involve collaborative co-
design of studies and peer reviewed publication of findings.
    Relatedly, we also work to be transparent when it comes to 
describing how Instagram works. We've recently published blog posts 
that explain how we personalize people's experiences and how our search 
technology works. For more information, please visit https://
about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/shedding-more-light-on-how-
instagram-works and https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/
break-down-how-instagram-search-works.
    We know there is interest in the way our platforms operate and the 
steps we take to improve them. We don't shy away from that scrutiny, 
and we are working to find an appropriate path forward when it comes to 
communicating about our research in a way that allows us to continue to 
promote full and frank discussion while also respecting the privacy of 
our users.

    Question 4. If Instagram restricts the types of research, datasets, 
studies, or other relevant information or freedom to publish findings 
for independent researchers, please detail these restrictions and its 
reasons for doing so.
    Answer. Please see the response to your Question 3.

    Pro-eating disorder content. I am stunned that Instagram has done 
so little to address the eating disorder content that is rampant on its 
platform. In March, according to whistleblower documents, a Facebook 
engineer raised alarms that Instagram had not kept up with the risks 
associated with users promoting and glorifying eating disorders. The 
Tech Transparency Project released a report this month that found, 
after just four days, that anorexia ``coaches'' began reaching out to 
an account that resembled a young teen. Instagram is not detecting and 
removing clearly dangerous material, despite repeated warnings, 
internal reports, and harrowing tragedies.

    Question 5. What specific steps has Instagram taken to detect and 
remove content promoting and glorifying eating disorders since its 
warning in March?
    Answer. We don't allow anyone to encourage or promote eating 
disorders on Instagram, which includes offers of coaching or 
instructions, and we remove this content whenever we become aware of 
it. For example, we block hashtags that break our rules, such as 
#thinspo, #proana, and#anabuddy. In the third quarter of 2021, we 
removed about 12 million pieces of suicide and self-injury content 
(which includes eating disorder content) from Facebook and Instagram; 
we detected over 96 percent of that content before people reported it 
to us. A significant portion of that is detected and removed when it is 
uploaded. In some cases, content requires human review to understand 
the context in which material was posted. We'll continue to follow 
expert advice from academics and mental health organizations, like the 
National Eating Disorder Association (``NEDA''), to strike the balance 
between allowing people to share their mental health experiences and 
helping protect them from content that may potentially be harmful to 
them.
    We're constantly working, including with global experts, to improve 
in this important area. For example, on Instagram, we recently created 
a dedicated option to report eating disorder content, making it easier 
to report violating content and provide resources to those who may be 
struggling. While people have always been able to report content 
related to eating disorders, users will now see a separate dedicated 
option to do so.
    We do allow people to share their own experiences and journeys 
around self-image and body acceptance on our platforms because we know, 
and experts agree, that these stories can prompt important 
conversations and provide community support. But we also know such 
content can be triggering for some. To address this, when someone tries 
to search for or share self-harm related content on Facebook or 
Instagram, we blur potentially triggering images and point people to 
helpful resources. Additionally, if someone tries searching for terms 
related to eating disorders, we share dedicated resources, including 
contacts for local eating disorder hotlines in certain countries. In 
the US, for example, we surface expert informed resources, including 
from NEDA. These resources will also be surfaced if someone tries 
sharing this content. Additionally, for those concerned that a person's 
post suggests they may need help with these issues, our Help Center 
provides information about eating disorders and guidance to help start 
a conversation with someone who may be struggling with eating 
disorders. We also provide a list of recommended Dos and Don'ts 
(developed with NEDA) for talking to someone about their eating 
disorder.
    For the third year in a row, we worked with NEDA to share 
programming during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week in the US. 
Throughout the week, community leaders shared Reels to encourage 
positive body image, push back against weight stigma and harmful 
stereotypes, and show that all bodies are worthy and deserve to be 
celebrated.
    Additionally, we are taking steps to protect vulnerable users on 
Instagram from being exposed to content that is permissible (but 
possibly triggering) by making it harder to find. We remove such posts 
from places where people discover new content, including in our Explore 
page, and we are not recommending accounts identified as featuring 
suicide or self-injury content. In addition, when someone starts typing 
a known hashtag or account related to suicide and self-harm into 
search, we are also working to restrict results. And our Help Center 
provides information about eating disorders and how to support someone 
who may be struggling with these issues.
    We don't want anyone on Instagram to feel marginalized, 
particularly people with eating disorders or body image issues. While 
we already work in partnership with experts to understand how to 
support those affected by eating disorders, there's always more we can 
learn. That's why we're hosting feedback sessions with community 
leaders and experts globally to learn more about emerging issues in the 
eating disorders space and new approaches for offering support.

    School disruptions. I have heard from teachers and educators in 
Connecticut that social media apps--Instagram specifically--disrupt the 
educational process. One teacher told me that she effectively could not 
teach in the afternoons because students would spend the rest of the 
day distracted by what happened online during lunch. The Wall Street 
Journal also recently reported about ``gossip'' accounts on Instagram 
and other platforms, accounts students create to spread rumors about 
each other, cyberbully other students, and instigate fights.

    Question 6. What support does Instagram provide to teachers and 
school administrators? How long has it offered this support?
    Answer. As educators nationwide continue to navigate the ongoing 
challenges of teaching during an unprecedented time, we believe that 
supporting educators is crucial. That's why we work to help educators 
find and build community, discover resources, and learn about other 
tools to support them and their learning communities via our Educator 
Hub. For more information, please visit https://www.facebook
.com/fb/education/educator-hub.
    Additionally, in 2018, Meta announced a partnership with the 
National Parent Teacher Association (``National PTA'') to launch 
Digital Families Community events across the country. In 2019, 200 
community safety events took place in all 50 states to help families 
address tech-related challenges, from online safety and bullying 
prevention to digital and news literacy. The toolkits for these events 
were developed with experts including the Youth and Media Team at the 
Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. The events 
included interactive workshops for families on healthy online habits 
and a family tech talk around family social media values and social 
media and phone ``off times.''
    In 2020, we also launched new Resources for Educators that 
specifically address digital literacy. Get Digital provides lessons and 
resources based on many years of academic research by our expert 
partners to help young people develop the competencies and skills they 
need to navigate the Internet more safely. These resources are designed 
to be used by educators and families both in the classroom and at home.
    Get Digital allows students to perform a deep dive into core 
digital citizenship and well-being skills, and learn how to:

   Get connected and leverage digital tools to stay safe while 
        navigating information in the digital world.

   Use technology to explore their identities and engage with 
        others in positive ways to protect their health and well-being 
        while online.

   Interpret cultural and social differences, respond and 
        engage respectfully, and evaluate, create, and share different 
        types of media content.

   Participate in public matters and advocate for issues they 
        care about.

   Learn the skills they need to fully leverage the 
        opportunities the digital world may offer.

    Get Digital also offers a facilitator's guide specifically designed 
for after school programming to support educators' usage of these 
digital literacy lessons in an after school setting. To support 
teachers as they look to incorporate digital citizenship and well-being 
lessons into their curriculum, we designed five different PowerPoint 
professional development guides. These can be used by teacher leaders 
to train educators on how to use these materials in the classroom.
    We partnered with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and 
Cultural Organization (``UNESCO''), the International Society for 
Technology in Education, National PTA, and EVERFI to distribute our new 
digital literacy tools to parents and educators around the world. 
Lessons are drawn from the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Klein 
Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, which has made 
them freely available worldwide under a Creative Commons license, and 
the Greater Good Science Center. And in the US, we've collaborated with 
The Child Mind Institute and ConnectSafely to publish a new Parents 
Guide. It includes the latest safety tools and privacy settings and a 
list of tips and conversation starters to help parents navigate 
discussions with their teens about their online presence.
    We've also partnered with the Jed Foundation to release our 
`Pressure to be Perfect' toolkit, a guide for parents and teens on how 
to manage social comparison on Instagram. It includes information on 
how to support positive teen expression as well as tips for how young 
people can share their stories authentically and find supportive 
communities online.
    Finally, we've collaborated with Yale University's Center for 
Emotional Intelligence and Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation to 
create inspirED, a free program designed to help young people build a 
more positive school climate. inspirED provides free resources, 
designed by teens, educators, and social emotional learning experts 
that empower students to work together to create more positive school 
climates and foster greater well-being in their schools and 
communities. By engaging with inspirED, teams across the Nation are 
empowered to change the way that students and teachers feel in school 
every day.
    For more information regarding our efforts to combat bullying, 
please see the answer to your Question 7 below.

    Question 7. What steps, if any, has Instagram taken to address 
``gossip'' accounts? If accounts were removed in response to reports, 
how long did it take Instagram to act?
    Answer. We take the issues of safety and well-being on our 
platforms very seriously, especially for the youngest people who use 
our services. We are committed to working with parents and families, as 
well as experts in child development, online safety, and children's 
health and media, to ensure we are building better products for 
families.
    We prohibit bullying, hate speech, or harassment on our platform, 
and we use a combination of user reports and technology to find and 
remove this type of content. If an account repeatedly breaks our 
Community Guidelines, by posting hate speech and bullying content for 
example, we will remove it from Instagram.
    Our Hate Speech policy prohibits attacks against individuals based 
on a number of protected characteristics, including race, ethnicity, 
national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual 
orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease. Our Bullying 
and Harassment policies are applied to a broad range of content that 
attacks individuals, including content that's meant to degrade or 
shame. We recognize that bullying and harassment can have more of an 
emotional impact on minors, which is why our policies provide 
heightened protections for users between the ages of 13 and 18. And in 
October 2021, we updated our policies on online bullying and harassment 
to help protect people from mass harassment and intimidation from 
multiple accounts. We now remove coordinated efforts of mass harassment 
that target individuals at a heightened risk of offline harm, for 
example victims of violent tragedies or government dissidents--even if 
the content on its own wouldn't violate our policies. We will also 
remove objectionable content that is considered mass harassment towards 
any individual on personal surfaces, such as direct messages in inbox 
or comments on personal profiles or posts.
    We're always working on new tools, re-evaluating our policies, and 
continually investing in detection technology to ensure we are 
proactively tackling the problem as best we can, as we know how 
important it is to get this right. We spent approximately $5 billion on 
safety and security in 2021 alone and have 40,000 people working on 
these issues, including 15,000 people who review content in more than 
70 languages working in more than 20 locations all across the world to 
support our community. We also use artificial intelligence technology. 
In the third quarter of 2021, we removed almost 8 million pieces of 
bullying and harassment content from Instagram; of that content, we 
removed over 80 percent of it proactively, before people reported it.
    In addition, we have created several tools to combat bullying on 
Instagram:

   In 2018, we launched Restrict, which allows people to 
        protect themselves from bullying, without the fear of 
        retaliation. Once someone Restricts an account, they won't 
        receive any notifications from that account. Comments from a 
        restricted account will only be visible to the user and the 
        person they restricted, and messages from a restricted account 
        will automatically be moved to Message Request. The restricted 
        account will not be able to see when the user has read their 
        direct messages or when the user is active on Instagram. This 
        tool was based on research with thousands of people across 
        different countries and languages to develop a clearer picture 
        of how they experience bullying on Instagram. It found that 
        tools like reporting or blocking weren't always the right 
        options for people. For example, in one of our studies we 
        observed that, of people surveyed in the US, Brazil, UK, 
        Indonesia, and Turkey, 45 percent who had deleted offensive 
        comments from someone they knew personally didn't report them 
        because they were afraid the reported account would get in 
        trouble and/or would find out that they had reported them. And 
        in another study, more than half of people surveyed who 
        reported experiencing bullying knew their bullies personally.

   We've created comment warnings when people try to post 
        potentially offensive comments. Reminding people of the 
        consequences of bullying on Instagram and providing real-time 
        feedback as they are writing the comment is the most effective 
        way to shift behavior. These warnings let people take a moment 
        to step back and reflect on their words and lay out the 
        potential consequences should they proceed. We've found that, 
        about 50 percent of the time, people edited or deleted their 
        comments based on these warnings.

   We launched Hidden Words, which allows people to 
        automatically filter Direct Message (``DM'') requests that 
        contain offensive words, phrases, and emojis into a Hidden 
        Folder that they never have to open if they don't want to. This 
        feature also filters DM requests that are likely to be spammy 
        or low-quality.

   Finally, to help protect people when they experience or 
        anticipate a rush of abusive comments and DMs, we introduced 
        Limits, a feature that automatically hides comments and DM 
        requests from people who don't follow them or only recently 
        followed them. We developed this feature because we heard that 
        creators and public figures sometimes experience sudden spikes 
        of comments and DM requests from people they don't know. Limits 
        allows people to hear from their long-standing followers, while 
        limiting contact from people who might only be coming to their 
        account to target them.

    Finally, we also believe it is important to provide parents with 
the information, resources, and tools they need to have conversations 
with their children about online technologies and to help them develop 
healthy and safe online habits. To that end, we offer dedicated 
resources for parents and guardians on the Facebook and Instagram 
Services, including a Parents Portal, Parent Center (which includes a 
downloadable PDF guide available in multiple languages), and Parent's 
Guide with information about the privacy and safety tools available to 
their teens on the Facebook and Instagram Services, top questions from 
parents, and advice for talking to their kids about staying safe on 
Instagram. We also created a Bullying Prevention Hub, developed in 
partnership with bullying prevention experts, to serve as a resource 
for educators and families seeking support for issues related to 
bullying and other conflicts. It offers step-by-step plans, including 
guidance on how to start important conversations for people being 
bullied, advice for parents and caregivers who have a child who is 
being bullied or accused of bullying, and educators who have had 
students involved with bullying. We provide tips and tools for bullying 
prevention in our Safety Center, available here: https://
www.facebook.com/safety/childsafety/bullyingprevention.
    In 2020, we also launched Get Digital, which provides lessons and 
resources based on many years of academic research by our expert 
partners to help young people develop the competencies and skills they 
need to navigate the Internet more safely. It includes a bullying 
prevention toolkit especially for educators and provides tips for 
helping teens recognize others' perspectives and feelings. Finally, we 
work closely with organizations like the Cyberbullying Research Center 
and the International Bullying Prevention Association.

    Question 8. Does Instagram currently take or is Instagram planning 
to enact any additional steps to prevent the disruption of safe 
educational environments in schools?
    Answer. We remove content, disable accounts, and, when appropriate, 
work with law enforcement when we believe there is a genuine risk of 
physical harm or direct threats to public safety, including in schools. 
We also aim to prevent potential offline harm that may be related to 
content on Facebook or Instagram and remove language that incites or 
facilitates serious violence. We're always evolving our policies to 
make sure they are staying up-to-date with evolving trends. We will 
continue to improve our technology and make sure our policies keep up 
with the latest research and with people's changing behavior to make 
our platform a safe and supportive place for everyone.
    For more information on our efforts to support educators, please 
see the responses to your Questions 6 and 7.
                                 ______
                                 
   Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to 
                              Adam Mosseri
    Instagram's Marketing Spend. The New York Times has reported on 
leaked documents about Instagram's intentional focus on marketing to 
kids.\1\ That was contested by the head of Instagram at the hearing. 
Please respond to the following questions related to Instagram's 
marketing efforts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/16/technology/instagram-
teens.html

   According to company planning documents, Instagram's global 
        marketing budget was slated to increase from $67.2 million in 
        2018 to $390 million in 2021, more than a five-fold increase. 
        According to documents, this planned budget was earmarked 
        mostly to target teens, which Mr. Mosseri denied in his 
        testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee. The New York 
        Times also reported that Mr. Mosseri personally approved these 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        budgets.

     What was Instagram's planned total global marketing 
            budget for each year from 2018 to 2021? And for the United 
            States?

     What percentage of Instagram's planned global 
            marketing budget was earmarked for attracting, retaining, 
            or reaching potential users under 18? Provide percentages 
            for each year from 2018 to 2021.

     What percentage of Instagram's planned global 
            marketing budget was earmarked for attracting, retaining, 
            or reaching users under 18 through digital advertisements? 
            Provide percentages for each year from 2018 to 2021.

    Answer. As we've previously shared, teens are an important 
community that helps spot and set some trends. It shouldn't come as a 
surprise that they, like many other demographics, are a part of our 
marketing strategy. We require a minimum age of 13 to use Facebook and 
Instagram in the US.
    We started work to build an Instagram experience for tweens (aged 
10-12) to address an important problem seen across our industry: kids 
are getting phones younger and younger, misrepresenting their age, and 
downloading apps that are meant for those 13 or older. We were working 
on delivering experiences that are age-appropriate and give parents and 
guardians visibility and control over what their tweens are doing 
online, like an Instagram experience for tweens. However, that work is 
now paused.
    Instagram's global marketing budget has increased approximately 4.7 
times between Fiscal Years 2018 and 2021. But we do not focus 
Instagram's entire marketing budget towards teens.

   Did any internal company documents use the term 
        ``existential threat'' when describing the possible loss of 
        teen engagement on Instagram? If so, please provide copies of 
        all such documents from 2018 to the present.

    Answer. Please see the response to your Question 1. In addition, 
from its earliest beginnings, Instagram has been an app widely used and 
enjoyed by young people, including teens. As such, marketing our 
products and services to young people, including educating them about 
features on our platform, has been a long-standing part of our 
marketing strategy. However, we don't allocate marketing spend by age 
group (i.e., teens). Over the last two years, Instagram has launched a 
series of product marketing campaigns, each with different goals and 
objectives. To optimize these efforts, we target a broad range of age 
groups, which may include teens, but is mostly spread across 16- to 34-
year-olds. While we utilize marketing to inform people about what's new 
on our platform, the bulk of our advertising dollars are spent on 
acquiring new users, and our new user acquisition spend is largely 
aimed at people who are older than 18 years old, not teens.

   Please provide copies of the top 50 most-seen-by-teens 
        advertisements run by Instagram and intended to attract 
        teenagers in the United States to Instagram in each year from 
        2018 to 2021.

     For each advertisement in response to this question, 
            please state how many times it was seen by teens and how 
            many unique teens saw it.

    Answer. We do not currently track on an age-segmented basis 
impression-level data for ads intended to attract new people to our 
platform.

   In addition to advertising its own products and services to 
        teenagers, Meta sells ads to other companies that are aimed at 
        teenagers on Instagram. As previously requested, please provide 
        copies of the 100 most-seen-by-teens advertisements on 
        Instagram in the United States in the last year.

     For each advertisement in response to this question, 
            please state how many times it was seen by teens and how 
            many unique teens saw it.

    Answer. Our policies and procedures limit our ability to produce 
advertisers' ads and related data. During an approximately 90-day time 
period between October 2021 and January 2022, Instagram users known to 
be under 18 most often saw ads from Consumer Packaged Goods, E-
Commerce/Retail, and Gaming verticals, which are also among the largest 
verticals for Meta's advertising business as a whole.
    Meta also offers the Facebook Ad Library, an ads transparency 
surface, which provides a view of ads across our apps and services. It 
helps make advertising transparent by giving people more information 
about the ads they see and contains all active ads running across our 
products. For additional information, please visit https://
www.facebook.com/business/help/2405092116183307?id=288762101909005.

   Please provide all documents that were sent to Mr. Mosseri 
        or anyone who reports (or reported) directly to him indicating 
        Instagram's planned global marketing spend from 2018 to 2021 as 
        well as those indicating how much of the planned or actual 
        global marketing budget was directed towards attracting, 
        retaining, or otherwise reaching teenagers. Please also provide 
        copies of all such documents Mr. Mosseri wrote or sent on these 
        topics.

    Answer. Please see the responses to your Questions 1 and 2.

   Please provide copies of all documents that Mr. Mosseri 
        wrote or sent about increasing the use of Instagram by people 
        under age 18.

    Answer. Please see the responses to your Questions 1 and 2.

    Instagram's New Safety Features. In early December, Instagram 
announced new features and plans for new features, including 
Instagram's first planned tools for parents for monitoring their 
children's use of Instagram.\2\ Please answer the following questions 
for each of the planned features described in the announcement, 
including:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/raising-the-
standard-for-protecting-teens-and-supporting-parents-online

   Will the feature be on or off by default when it is rolled 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        out?

   Who will the feature be rolled out to and when will it be 
        rolled out?

     Please describe whether the feature will only be 
            rolled out to specific groups of users (e.g., teen users in 
            the US), which groups that includes, and why Instagram has 
            decided to limit the feature to such groups.

   How does Instagram plan to make users and parents aware of 
        the new feature?

    Answer. At Instagram, we've been working for a long time to keep 
young people safe on our platform; as part of that work, we recently 
announced some new tools and features to keep young people even safer 
on Instagram.

   Parental Controls. Parents and guardians know what's best 
        for their teens, so we plan to launch our first opt-in tools in 
        March 2022 to help them guide and support their teens on 
        Instagram. Parents and guardians will be able to view how much 
        time their teens spend on Instagram and set time limits. We'll 
        also give teens a new option to notify their parents if they 
        report someone, giving their parents the opportunity to talk 
        about it with them. This is the first version of these tools; 
        we'll continue to add more options over time. We're also 
        developing a new educational hub for parents and guardians that 
        will include additional resources, like product tutorials and 
        tips from experts, to help them discuss social media use with 
        their teens.

   Take A Break. We recently launched ``Take A Break'' in 
        certain countries to empower people to make informed decisions 
        about how they're spending their time. If someone has been 
        scrolling for a certain amount of time, we ask them to take a 
        break from Instagram and suggest that they set reminders to 
        take more breaks in the future. We also show them expert-backed 
        tips to help them reflect and reset. To make sure that teens 
        are aware of this feature, we show them notifications 
        suggesting they turn these reminders on. We're encouraged to 
        see that teens are using Take A Break. Early test results show 
        that once teens set the reminders, more than 90 percent of them 
        keep them on. We launched this feature in the US, UK, Ireland, 
        Canada, New Zealand, and Australia in December 2021, and plan 
        to bring it to everyone by early this year. The Take A Break 
        reminders build on our existing time management tools including 
        Daily Limit, which lets people know when they've reached the 
        total amount of time they want to spend on Instagram each day, 
        and offers the ability to mute notifications from Instagram.

   Viewing and Managing Instagram Activity. We've also 
        developed a new experience for people to see and manage their 
        Instagram activity. We know that as teens grow up, they want 
        more control over how they show up both online and offline so, 
        for the first time, they are able to bulk delete content 
        they've posted like photos and videos, as well as their 
        previous likes and comments. While available to everyone, this 
        tool is particularly important for teens to understand more 
        fully what information they've shared on Instagram, what is 
        visible to others, and to have an easier way to manage their 
        digital footprint.

   Stopping People from Tagging or Mentioning Teens Who Don't 
        Follow Them. In 2021, we began defaulting teens under 16 years 
        old into private accounts when they signed up for Instagram, 
        and we stopped adults from being able to DM teens who don't 
        follow them. Now, we also plan to switch off the ability for 
        people to tag or mention teens who don't follow them, or to 
        include their content in Reels Remixes or Guides by default 
        when they first join Instagram. We're testing these changes to 
        further minimize the possibility that teens will hear from 
        those they don't know, or don't want to hear from, and plan to 
        make them available to everyone early this year.

   Further Restricting Recommendations to Teens in Search, 
        Explore, Hashtags, and Suggested Accounts. In July 2021, we 
        launched the Sensitive Content Control, which allows people to 
        decide how much sensitive content shows up in Explore. The 
        control has three options: Allow, Limit, and Limit Even More. 
        ``Limit'' is the default state for everyone and based on our 
        Recommendation Guidelines, ``Allow'' enables people to see more 
        sensitive content, whereas ``Limit Even More'' means they see 
        less of this content than the default state. The ``Allow'' 
        option is unavailable to people under the age of 18. We're 
        exploring expanding the ``Limit Even More'' state beyond 
        Explore for teens. This will make it more difficult for teens 
        to come across potentially harmful or sensitive content or 
        accounts in Search, Explore, Hashtags, Reels, and Suggested 
        Accounts. We're in the early stages of this idea and will have 
        more to share in time.

   Nudging Teens Towards Different Topics if They've Been 
        Dwelling on One Topic for a While. Lastly, our research shows--
        and external experts agree--that if people are dwelling on one 
        topic for a while, it could be helpful to nudge them towards 
        other topics at the right moment. That's why we're building a 
        new experience that will nudge people towards other topics if 
        they've been dwelling on one topic for a while. We'll have more 
        to share on this and changes we're making when it comes to 
        content and accounts we recommend to teens soon.

    Kids Purchasing Drugs Online. A recent report about Instagram found 
that, in an experiment, it only took two clicks to find an account to 
buy drugs on Instagram, but five clicks to log out of Instagram. When 
typing in the phrase ``buyxanax'' in the search bar, Instagram auto-
completed the query for buying Xanax before the simulated user even 
finished typing.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/xanax-ecstasy-
and-opioids-instagram-offers-drug-pipeline-kids

   Please describe any measures, including human-review or 
        automated, Instagram uses to prevent minors from buying drugs 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        on Instagram.

   Please describe the technologies Instagram uses to auto-
        complete user queries within the app and how these technologies 
        treat searches for content related to drugs, eating disorders, 
        and self-harm.

   Please describe, in detail, how such content could 
        proliferate on Meta's platforms, given Meta's content 
        moderation policies.

    Answer. Drug sales are prohibited on Instagram, and we remove 
content that attempts to buy, sell, or trade illicit drugs.
    Instagram's Community Guidelines and Facebook's Community Standards 
make it very clear that buying, selling, or trading non-medical or 
pharmaceutical drugs is not allowed. Any time we become aware of 
content on Facebook or Instagram that is facilitating activity like 
illicit drug sales, we remove it. We have taken measures to minimize 
the opportunity for these activities to take place on our platforms.
    Views of violating content that contains regulated goods are very 
infrequent, and we remove much of this content before people see it. In 
the third quarter of 2021 alone, we removed about 4.5 million pieces of 
content related to drug sales on Facebook and Instagram, and due to our 
improving detection technology, the prevalence of such content is about 
0.05 percent of content viewed on Facebook. Additionally, the hashtags 
#mdma, #buyfentanyl, and #buyxanax have all been blocked, and we're 
reviewing additional hashtags to understand if there are further 
violations of our policies. We'll continue to improve in this area in 
our ongoing efforts to keep Instagram safe, particularly for our 
youngest community members.
    We do, however, allow people to talk about their recovery from 
addiction, and we try to offer help to those who may be struggling by 
connecting them with free and confidential treatment referrals, as well 
as information about substance use, prevention, and recovery. When 
people search for drugs on Facebook and Instagram, we direct them to 
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National 
Helpline to help educate people about the risks and prevent drug 
misuse. Meta partners with federal, state, and local authorities, as 
well as nonprofits, on innovative ways they can use social media as a 
tool to respond to the opioid epidemic. We have seen that Meta products 
and tools can complement work on prevention, education, de-
stigmatization, addiction support and awareness, and we continue to 
support community groups and NGOs that have used our platform for good. 
We care deeply about opioid addiction in our communities, and we are 
committed to doing our part to implement solutions.
    For example, since 2013, we've also been a member of the Center for 
Safe Internet Pharmacies (``CSIP''), a nonprofit organization to 
address the global problem of consumer access to illegitimate 
pharmaceuticals from illegal online pharmacies and other sources. As 
one of its member companies, we have the shared goal of helping address 
the growing problem of consumer access to illegitimate pharmaceutical 
products on the Internet. Meta's work with CSIP also includes serving 
as a founding member of Tech Together, an industry coalition formed in 
November 2018 and led by the CSIP to enable members to share best 
practices and find ways to increase our collective impact to address 
the crisis. We also partner with Song for Charlie, a family-run 
nonprofit charity dedicated to raising awareness about counterfeit pill 
sales targeting young people, to help give young people more 
information about the danger posed by illicit and counterfeit drugs 
sold online.

                                [all]