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Facebook Shows Its Version Of Leaked Slides Claiming Instagram ‘Toxic’ For Teens
By Mikelle Leow, 27 Sep 2021
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A slide from an internal Facebook presentation in March 2020. Image via Facebook
Following an alarming report by the Wall Street Journal detailing an internal Facebook presentation about Instagram making teen girls “feel worse” about themselves, the social network has shared its side of the story, arguing in a new blog post that the exposé doesn’t paint the full picture.
The report had called the platform out for being “toxic for teen girls,” which the company is now hoping to disprove.
“We want to be clear about what the research recently characterized by The Wall Street Journal shows, and what it does not show,” writes Pratiti Raychoudhury, Head of Research at Facebook. “It is simply not accurate that this research demonstrates Instagram is ‘toxic’ for teen girls.”
Facebook defends that “body image” was just one of 12 categories it looked into and discussed in a March 2020 presentation regarding user wellbeing, adding that it was the only aspect where teenage girls felt lacking in.
On the flip side, participants agreed that, in the other 11 of 12 areas, Instagram had been helpful during difficult times, where it “either made it better or had no impact,” according to Facebook.
“The research actually demonstrated that many teens we heard from feel that using Instagram helps them when they are struggling with the kinds of hard moments and issues teenagers have always faced. In fact, in 11 of 12 areas on the slide referenced by the Journal — including serious areas like loneliness, anxiety, sadness and eating issues — more teenage girls who said they struggled with that issue also said that Instagram made those difficult times better rather than worse,” Raychoudhury elaborates.
Its research also has its “limitations,” since Facebook only collected insights from 40 teenagers about “teens’ most negative perceptions of Instagram.”
Facebook reasons that such findings are “proactively” sought and shared within the company to look for ways to improve its services, “which is why the worst possible results are highlighted in the internal slides,” says Raychoudhury. The slide in question is headlined: “But, we make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.”
“Studying these big societal issues and what impacts them is nuanced and complex. The Journal article implied that we were hiding this research and that the results are surprising, but that is simply not accurate,” Facebook details.
The company says that, following the 2020 sharings, it has rolled out some measures in response to these problems in a bid to “minimize the bad on our platforms and maximize the good.” In conjunction with youth wellness and safety experts, it now directs youths to resources to support Instagram users struggling with eating disorders and other body image issues; as well as has controls in place to remove all graphic content associated with suicide and self-injury.
Click to view enlarged version
Click to view enlarged version. Image via Facebook
If you or someone you know is dealing with body dysmorphia or suicidal thoughts, please reach out to any of these local helplines to connect to a trained expert who may help you. This isn’t a battle you need to fight on your own.
[via Facebook and Bloomberg, images via Facebook]
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