Instagram rolls out new safety features one day before the platform's CEO testifies to Congress
CNN's Donie O’Sullivan: “A lot of this sort of stuff is window dressing. It's good to have some changes, but really it is something just so the head of Instagram has something to say tomorrow.”
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From the December 7, 2021, edition of CNN's CNN Newsroom With Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell
ALISYN CAMEROTA (CO-ANCHOR): Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is rolling out new safety features today. They say the measures are aimed at protecting younger users from harmful content and addictive behavior.
VICTOR BLACKWELL (CO-ANCHOR): And they're being put in place one day before Instagram's CEO is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill over the issue. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan is here. Donie, what's the plan?
DONIE O'SULLIVAN (CNN CORRESPONDENT): Well, Instagram, as you mentioned, Instagram are rolling this out, it's not a coincidence, one day before they go to Congress. And some folks will cynically say it's so they have something to tell the senators, say we are doing something.
Here is what some of the features that they're rolling out. They're going to let people know that they should take a break from the app. They're going to take a stricter approach, or they call it a stricter approach, to all content they recommend for teenagers. They're going to allow bulk deletions of photos and videos, previous likes and comments, and create an educational hub for parents, which all sounds very well and good. But I think, you know, the company's critics, a lot of lawmakers, the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen will say this is really nothing. This doesn't scratch the surface. People want fundamental change at these platforms. This isn't going to solve the issues of when if you set up an account and you're a young teenage girl and you start following some dieting accounts, as we did with an experiment in our reporting a few weeks ago, and the app starts recommending to you pro-anorexia, pro-eating disorder accounts. That's the fundamental problem. A lot of this sort of stuff is window dressing. It's good to have some changes, but really it is something just so the head of Instagram has something to say tomorrow.
CAMEROTA: Yeah, I mean call me a cynic, but the timing seems like not a coincidence. So what do you expect the CEO to say?
O'SULLIVAN: Yeah, well we often and we often see they've done this before where [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg comes in. The CEO tomorrow is probably going to say something along the lines of “we know we have a lot more work to do. We are taking these steps." But I think the awkward questions that lawmakers can ask him is to say, “Well, what are you going to do about your algorithm?" Because that is ultimately what feeds people the garbage, whether it's about the election, whether it's about eating disorders, whether it's about all other types of conspiracy theories.