These are bad times for Instagram and could end up being worse, deservedly so. We recently learned that 41 states in the United States have sued Meta over the “relationship” of its social networks, mainly Instagram, with minors. And although the information in this regard has decreased significantly in the last two years, the tide continues to move below the surface, and now Meta is threatened with a real tsunami.

When it was April 2021 Meta’s plans to create an Instagram for kids have been publicly revealeda plan that did not sit well with the United States authorities, and which outraged much of the public a few months later when it was revealed that Meta knew about the harmful effects of Instagram on minors, and that despite this he continued his plans to bring toxicity to the little ones. Adam Mosseri, the director of the social network, even dared to say that the positive points outweigh the negative. Fortunately, in the meantime, the US Senate launched an investigation, and in response, plans for Instagram for children were put on hold.

The investigative hearings of the United States Senate were very revealing, especially thanks to the contributions of Frances Haugen, a former Meta employee, which was able to document that they were fully aware of their harmful influence on minors on Instagram, closing the avenue of denial of knowledge that up to that point could have been the basis of Meta’s defense. Since then, we’ve seen Meta try to improve Instagram’s image with measures like the parental controls they announced at the end of that year and improvements to the age verification system… but they’ve obviously arrived late.

Frances Haugen’s revelations played, as already indicated, a key role because of the large amount of information she was able to provide. Well, as we can read on Engadget, Another former Meta employee will testify before the US Congress about Instagramwhich is testimony that, in addition to reinforcing what Haugen said earlier, will serve to provide more information about the Met’s more than questionable behavior in this regard.

This new testimony is that of Artur Béjar, former Meta employee and Instagram consultantwho will testify before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee next Tuesday, November 7, and will say, according to public statements, that an internal investigation showed that more than 20 percent of users under the age of 16 “They felt worse about themselves after seeing other people’s posts» and the 13 percent «have received unwanted sexual suggestions in the past seven days«.

«We now know from Arthur’s revelations Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri and other Meta executives were personally warned that millions of teens face bullying, material about eating disorders, illegal drugs and sexual exploitation, often within minutes of opening the app“We can read in the statement of Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal, both members of the Judiciary Committee studying this case, adding «Instead of addressing these deadly harms, Facebook continued to hide this information from the public and Congressional oversight, ignored recommendations to protect teens, rolled back safety tools, and disbanded teams responsible for child safety.«.

I repeat, we are talking about minors, from this point everyone can judge according to their own criteria. In my case, At the time, I described Adam Mosseri as a moron. Today it is clear to me that I have failed quite a lotand that Zuckerberg shares the spotlight on that point.