Instagram will bring back posts displayed in chronological order
Instagram will bring back posts displayed in chronological order
From CNN’s Brian Fung
Instagram is actively working on a version of its content feed that allows users to sort media chronologically, rather than ranked according to the platform’s algorithm, Instagram head Adam Mosseri told Sen. John Thune.
The company has been working on the feature “for months” and plans to roll it out in the first quarter of next year, the head of the platform added.
Instagram content was initially presented in reverse-chronological order, but the platform shifted away from that model in 2016. In February 2020, an external researcher, Jane Manchun Wong, discovered a “Latest Posts” feed being tested by the company.
The disclosure highlights how Meta, Instagram’s parent company, is exploring the concept of algorithmic choice that has been pushed hardest by competitors, such as Twitter.
Supporters of algorithmic choice believe that users should be able to choose whether and how to engage with a platform’s custom algorithm.
Mosseri acknowledges ‘missed opportunity’ to address underage Instagram use during event with influencer JoJo Siwa
From CNN Business’ Brian Fung
Sen. Marsha Blackburn confronted Adam Mosseri with an exchange he had with influencer JoJo Siwa, who told him during an Instagram live event in June that she had been using the platform from the age of eight.
Mosseri told Blackburn Wednesday he now believes that the exchange was a “missed opportunity” to address underage Instagram use.
At the time, Mosseri told Siwa that “I don’t want to hear it.”
In his response, Mosseri told Blackburn that Instagram works hard to identify users who are too young to use Instagram. But he was cut off.
“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?” Blackburn interjected.
“Senator, I would say it was a missed opportunity,” Mosseri conceded.
“Indeed it was a missed opportunity,” Blackburn said, “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.”
Democratic Sen. Klobuchar: “Our kids aren’t cash cows”
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar claimed Instagram increased its marketing budget from $62 million in 2018 to $390 million in 2021 to “woo more teens.”
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, refuted these claims.
“We increased our overall marketing budget,” he said, but added it wasn’t focused on acquiring more teen users.
“We try to make Instagram as relevant as possible for all users, including teens,” he added.
Lawmakers and parents have “diametrically opposed” goals from Instagram, Klobuchar said Wednesday.
“Our kids aren’t cash cows. That is exactly what’s been going on. When you look at your marketing budget, and you look at what your company has done, is to try to get more and more of them on board,” she added.
Mosseri rebuffs two requests from Democratic Sen. Blumenthal
From CNN’s Brian Fung
Lawmakers wasted no time trying to secure specific policy concessions from Instagram, but Adam Mosseri largely refused to budge.
The Head of Instagram rebuffed two specific requests by Blumenthal.
Blumenthal asked for Instagram to permanently halt its development of Instagram Kids, a planned product for kids aged 10-12. Mosseri declined to stop the project, but committed that if Instagram Kids came to fruition, parents would have control over their kids’ ability to access the product.
Blumenthal also asked Mosseri to shift from supporting an industry-led standards body for social media to supporting an “independent” body that is not led by Big Tech. Mosseri also declined to explicitly commit to that, but he agreed it is important for regulatory standards to apply to social media when it comes to young people.
Instagram head admits there’s a loophole in teen account privacy default
From CNN’s Clare Duffy
Instagram head Adam Mosseri admitted to lawmakers that there was a loophole in a default privacy setting meant to protect teens on the platform.
For users under the age of 16, the company has said that newly created accounts are private — meaning other users must request to follow them in order to view their content — by default. But GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, ranking member of the subcommittee, said her office created an account for a hypothetical 15-year-old girl ahead of the hearing on the web browser version of Instagram and the account was set to public by default.
“Isn’t the opposite supposed to happen?” Blackburn said “And have you considered turning off the public option altogether for minor accounts?”
Mosseri said he learned of the issue with the privacy default Wednesday morning, hours before the hearing.
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, but we have missed that on the web and we will correct that quickly,” Mosseri said, skirting the second half of Blackburn’s question.
Read some excerpts from Adam Mosseri’s testimony on Instagram’s impact on kids
Adam Mosseri’s prepared testimony covers a range of steps Instagram has taken to help keep users safe, from making it harder for young people to receive unwanted messages from adults to restricting advertising so that marketers can only target minors based on age, gender and location.
Here are a few key excerpts from the head of Instagram’s opening remarks, where he stated he firmly believes that Instagram “can be a positive force in young people’s lives.”
On using age verification as a way of keeping young users safe:
Mosseri stated that users under the age of 13 are not permitted on Instagram, and that the platform is trying to build new technologies to find a remove accounts belonging to those under 13.
Additionally, Instagram will launch its first set of controls for parents and guardians in March, he said.
Calling for more industry regulation:
Mosseri also stated his support for updated regulations to keep people safe online.
“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 build age-appropriate experiences, 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. And I believe that companies like ours should have to earn some of the Section 230 protections by adhering to those standards,” he said in his prepared testimony.
Here are a few excerpts from GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s opening remarks
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is the ranking member of the Senate subcommittee, expressed her frustration around big tech at the hearing. Here are a few excerpts from her opening remarks:
“I want to be honest and tell you that I am a bit frustrated today … Tennesseans want Big Tech to be more transparent and to accept responsibility for your actions. And time and time again, you say things that make it sound like you are hearing us and agree – but then nothing changes,” she said to Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram.
Blackburn also criticized the latest set of product updates Instagram released, calling them “half measures.”
“Yesterday, at 3:00 a.m. – which is midnight in Silicon Valley – you released a list of product updates you said would ‘raise the standard for protecting teens and supporting parents online.’ I’m not sure what hours you all keep in California. But where I’m from, the middle of the night is when you drop news that you don’t want people to see,” she said Wednesday. “While I’m 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’ve introduced are going to get us to the point where we need to be.”
The measures are also “a case of too little, too late,” she added.
“Because now there is bipartisan momentum – both here and in the House – to tackle these problems we are seeing with Big Tech … This is the appropriate time to pass a national consumer privacy bill as well as kids-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 230’s liability shield when it comes to content like human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug trafficking – despite Congress speaking clearly to this issue when it passed FOSTA-SESTA a few years ago.”
Sen. Blumenthal: “The trust is gone” from big tech
Clad in a dark suit and appearing in person before Senate lawmakers, Mosseri spent a few moments arranging his notes before Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate’s consumer protection subcommittee, kicked things off.
Citing a crisis in teen mental health, Blumenthal said companies like Instagram — along with the algorithms that power it — have built “addictive” products “that can exploit children’s insecurities and anxieties.”
Though Mosseri’s prepared testimony calls for the creation of an industry self-regulatory body to come up with best practices for teen social media, Blumenthal signaled he views that as a nonstarter.
“Some of the big tech companies have said ‘Trust us.’ That seems to be what Instagram is saying in your testimony,” Blumenthal said. “But self-policing depends on trust. The trust is gone.”
On Monday, Blumenthal said, his office created a fake Instagram account for a teen and began following accounts promoting eating-disorder content — a follow-up experiment to a similar test he ran two months ago. “Within an hour all of our recommendations promoted pro-anorexia and eating disorder content,” Blumenthal said. “Nothing has changed. It’s all still happening.”
State attorneys general have launched an investigation into Instagram’s impact on kids
From CNN’s Clare Duffy
As the head of Instagram testifies on Capitol Hill, there is also a bipartisan investigation that’s ongoing.
A group of 10 state attorneys general have launched an investigation into Meta, the social media company formerly known as Facebook, focused on the potential harms of its Instagram platform on children and teens.
The announcement made last month follows extensive reporting on a trove of internal documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen. Some of those documents show that the company’s own researchers have found that Instagram can damage young users’ mental health and body image, and can exacerbate dangerous behaviors such as eating disorders.
The attorneys general say they will look into whether, by continuing to provide and promote Instagram despite knowing of the potential harms, Meta violated consumer protection laws and “put the public at risk.” The states involved include California, Florida, Kentucky and Vermont.
“Facebook, now Meta, has failed to protect young people on its platforms and instead chose to ignore or, in some cases, double down on known manipulations that pose a real threat to physical and mental health — exploiting children in the interest of profit,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is co-leading the investigation, said in a statement. She added that the coalition hopes to “get to the bottom of this company’s engagement with young users, identify any unlawful practices, and end these abuses for good.”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement that the allegations made by the attorneys general are false and said they “demonstrate a deep misunderstanding of the facts.”
“While challenges in protecting young people online impact the entire industry, we’ve led the industry in combating bullying and supporting people struggling with suicidal thoughts, self-injury, and eating disorders,” the statement reads. “We continue to develop parental supervision controls and are exploring ways to provide even more age-appropriate experiences for teens by default.”
Read the full story here.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/instagram-adam-mosseri-congress-teens-12-08-21/h_45c2fbb01005929b28f621c4f25d391f
