Discussion

• @justinhendrix Justin Hendrix on x

  “For the past three years, FB has been conducting studies into how its photo-sharing app affects its millions of young users. Repeatedly, the company's researchers found that IG is harmful for a sizable percentage of them, most notably teenage girls.” https://www.wsj.com/...

• @georgia_wells Georgia Wells on x

  “WE MAKE BODY IMAGE ISSUES WORSE FOR 1 IN 3 TEEN GIRLS.” That's a document that Facebook employees shared internally, summarizing research about teen girls who experience these issues By me, @JeffHorwitz + @dseetharaman https://www.wsj.com/...

• @qjurecic Quinta Jurecic on x

  This story is brutal overall, but this pair of anecdotes is almost a capsule summary of the danger of online connection and its promise https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @shiraovide Shira Ovide on x

  I'm just constantly struck that these companies that have changed the way we live understand their influence on us, and the rest of us are fumbling in the dark. https://twitter.com/...

• @chafkin Max Chafkin on x

  this story. wow. shades of big tobacco. FB was pushing its product to children even while researched (which the company seems to have covered up) showed pretty clear harm. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @jamestitcomb James Titcomb on x

  The top line is the research, but the story is Facebook's response when it doesn't like the answers. Instagram still building this for under 13s 🙃

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  Unfortunately, Project Daisy just doesn't work, with little/no statistical significance in any iteration. It's also bad for business and not worth imposing on users - all of which @AdamMosseri openly acknowledges when announcing it.

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  But while company researchers IG made available say they're optimistic about progress, it's pretty hard to move the needle on this subject. Not all problems are solvable — at least in ways that everyone likes.

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  So where does that leave us? IG talked with us about ongoing work (thank you) and has some new product features coming, which they'll be previewing a bit today. Sounded a bit like the “nudges” the platform shows people going down eating disorder content.

• @oliviasolon Olivia Solon on x

  And yet still the company is pushing forward with plans for a version of Instagram for under-13s https://twitter.com/...

• @georgia_wells Georgia Wells on x

  Facebook research on Instagram represents one of the clearest gaps revealed in the documents between Facebook's understanding of itself and its public position.

• @georgia_wells Georgia Wells on x

  “If you believe that R.J. Reynolds should have been more truthful about the link between smoking and lung cancer, then you should probably believe that Facebook should be more upfront about links to depression among teen girls,” said @jean_twenge

• @georgia_wells Georgia Wells on x

  Teens also told Instagram researchers they “often feel ‘addicted’ and know that what they're seeing is bad for their mental health but feel unable to stop themselves.”

• @georgia_wells Georgia Wells on x

  “The research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits,” Mark Zuckerberg said at a congressional hearing in March when asked about children and mental health.

• @georgia_wells Georgia Wells on x

  “Every time I feel good about myself, I go over to Instagram, and then it all goes away,” one teen told me. Facebook knows that Instagram is harmful to many young users—especially teenage girls, internal documents show. Publicly, Facebook plays down the app's impact.

• @georgia_wells Georgia Wells on x

  The docs say: -32% of teen girls said when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse -"Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves" -Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 6% of US users traced it to Instagram

• @shiraovide Shira Ovide on x

  This is all very hard to read. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @juliaangwin Julia Angwin on x

  Most parents of teenage girls - like myself - know this to be true. Our daughters feel worse about themselves after spending time on Instagram. Kudos to @JeffHorwitz & team for revealing that Instagram knows it makes body image issues worse for in 1 in 3 in teen girls. https://tw…

• @markdistef Mark Di Stefano on x

  There it is. Unbelievable they wrote this all down. https://twitter.com/...

• @timjhanrahan Tim Hanrahan on x

  Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed. ... https://www.wsj.com/...

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  But IG does consider its findings on “negative social comparison” to be robust. While the company noted the limits of its research to us, social science PhDs don't just create a ppt deck saying “We make body image issues worse in 1 in 3 teen girls” for giggles.)

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  Okay - a couple of things before everybody fetches the pitchforks. First, this is not research IG had to do. They heard criticism and wanted to explore it. Not every company would have done so. There needs to be a “right” way to explore this stuff.

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  Here's reality, as internally accepted by IG: The company “makes body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teen girls.” While the product is absolutely fine - good, really — for most users, it can harm for people who are vulnerable / in a rough spot regarding mental health.

• @paulwsj Paul Beckett on x

  “Every time I feel good about myself, I go over to Instagram, and then it all goes away.” Facebook knows that Instagram is harmful to many young users—especially teenage girls, internal documents show. Publicly, the tech giant plays down the app's impact. https://www.wsj.com/...

• @anthony Anthony DeRosa on x

  WSJ INVESTIGATION: The Facebook Files Facebook knows that Instagram is harmful to many young users—especially teenage girls, internal documents show. “Every time I feel good about myself, I go over to Instagram, and then it all goes away.” https://www.wsj.com/...

• @frankpallotta Frank Pallotta on x

  “Every time I feel good about myself, I go over to Instagram, and then it all goes away.” https://www.wsj.com/...

• @rwesthead Rick Westhead on x

  Facebook's own research finds Instagram makes body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teen girls. Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of UK users and 6% of US users traced desire to kill themselves to Instagram, acc to secret FB studies. https://www.wsj.com/...

• @venkatananth Venkat Ananth on x

  “...a mounting body of Facebook's own evidence shows Instagram can be damaging for many.” https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @deitaone @deitaone on x

  *Facebook Documents Show Teens Told Instagram Researchers They Often Feel ‘Addicted’

• @deitaone @deitaone on x

  *Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show $FB

• @deitaone @deitaone on x

  *Facebook Documents Show Teens Blame Instagram For Increases in Rate of Anxiety, Depression *Facebook Documents Show Instagram Makes Body-Image Issues Worse for One in Three Teen Girls, Based on 2019 Research About Teen Girls Who Experience The Issues

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  So... story #2. https://www.wsj.com/... This one, with the awesome @GeorgiaWells, is about what Instagram knows about its effects on the mental health of teenage users. It's rough.

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  WSJ today published a report about a FB system to give a second layer of review to content from high-profile Pages or Profiles to ensure correct application of our policies. If this secret program sounds familiar, it should. Here's what we said in 2018: https://about.fb.com/....

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  I've been on a Facebook project for months, and it's nowhere near done. But this is the first story: https://www.wsj.com/... TL:DR: Facebook, which talks a lot about democratizing voice, secretly exempted “VIP” users from its rules in “not publicly defensible” ways.

• @oversightboard Oversight Board on x

  The Oversight Board has expressed on multiple occasions its concern about the lack of transparency in Facebook's content moderation processes, especially relating to the company's inconsistent management of high-profile accounts.

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  “Unlike the rest of our community, these people can violate our standards without any consequences,” a 2019 attorney-client privileged review noted, describing whitelisting as posing “numerous legal, compliance, and legitimacy risks for the company and harm to our community.”

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  No. Facebook not only didn't give the @OversightBoard that data - it said that data didn't exist! And cited an explanation of XCheck that its own 2019 review had specially noted wasn't true. I am VERY curious to see if/how the @OversightBoard responds to this.

• @guyro Guy Rosen on x

  Content moderation is imperfect. An extra layer of checks for sensitive situations so we don't make mistakes is logical and does not equate to exempting from rules. We've talked about this for years and there's no news here, despite how much WSJ wants it to seem like there is. ht…

• @samidh @samidh on x

  Though it is easy to say there aren't two systems of justice on FB in terms of the policies themselves, having two different *processes* for justice is equally problematic. As they say, justice delayed is often justice denied. And process *is* law.

• @katestarbird Kate Starbird on x

  Instead of holding high profile superspreaders of problematic content accountable (and giving their hyper-visible content more scrutiny), FB has been protecting them: https://www.wsj.com/...

• @katieharbath Katie Harbath on x

  This story from ⁦@JeffHorwitz⁩ highlights many tensions between the PR fires that can come from taking wrong action against a high-profile accounts, how hard that is to fairly operationalize, and the years it's taking the company to make any changes. https://www.wsj.com/...

• @lpolgreen Lydia Polgreen on x

  The @wsj got its hands on the biggest trove of documents ever leaked from Facebook. What they show will shock you. Our teams have been hard at work to tell you what they found. Here's the first episode of the Facebook Files. https://open.spotify.com/...

• @smdiehl Stephen Diehl on x

  Facebook's response to the WSJ document leak is completely blank. So I guess we can take that as complete admission of guilt, right? https://about.fb.com/...

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  Athletes, celebrities and journalists (like me!) are in the system for a simple reason: Facebook is afraid of angering them with botched moderation calls / letting them see its normal enforcement system. Upsetting me is probably less scary than pissing off Sean Hannity, though.

• @rmac18 @rmac18 on x

  a wut team https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  As we said in 2018: “'Cross-check' simply means that some content from certain Pages or Profiles is given a second layer of review to make sure we've applied our policies correctly.” There aren't two systems of justice; it's an attempted safeguard against mistakes.

• @oversightboard Oversight Board on x

  The Board has repeatedly made recommendations that Facebook be far more transparent in general, including about its management of high-profile accounts, while ensuring that its policies treat all users fairly.

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  In the end, at the center of this story is Facebook's own analysis that we need to improve the program. We know our enforcement is not perfect and there are tradeoffs between speed and accuracy.

• @evelyndouek Evelyn Douek on x

  Damning story. I wrote about how fb entirely whiffed on giving more detail on the X-check process for VIP accounts in its responses to the @OversightBoard's questions in the Trump case. Now we know why (although, tbh, we already knew, right?) https://www.lawfareblog.com/ ... http…

• @deblebrown Deborah Brown on x

  Important, new story from @JeffHorwitz detailing Facebook's special treatment of millions of VIP accounts, exempting some from its rules. Builds on earlier reporting from @theinformation & @BuzzFeed and what many observers have documented for years. A few takeaways & ?s 1/ https:…

• @hawaii Ryan Kawailani Ozawa on x

  Hmm. My RSS reader says Facebook posted “Correcting the Record About Our Cross-Check Program” to its blog (https://about.fb.com/...), but it's nowhere to be seen. I was wondering how they'd respond to the @WSJ reporting on XCheck yesterday (https://www.wsj.com/...). #facebook

• @daveleeft Dave Lee on x

  @oliviasolon (2/2)... and gives other outlets an avenue to do a fresh story rather than a carbon copy of the initial scoop. Baffling. Could nip it in the bud at a the very beginning of the process and save all of this. And yet, again and again....!

• @realcandaceo Candace Owens on x

  What the actual hell, @Facebook ? @instagram just locked me out of my account and warned me that my account may be deleted over a post that I apparently posted in November of 2020— how is this possible? They are clearly having employees retro-hit accounts to justify deletion. htt…

• @samidh @samidh on x

  First, to state the obvious, automated moderation systems inevitably make lots of mistakes because human language is nuanced & complex. In theory, a confirmatory round of review is prudent because it is an awful experience to have your post taken down without cause.

• @samidh @samidh on x

  While I had no involvement whatsoever in @JeffHorwitz's very thorough reporting in the WSJ on FB's x-check system, I was quoted in the article based on a leaked internal post, so I am compelled to give a more full perspective. https://twitter.com/...

• @samidh @samidh on x

  But how you execute that second round of review is critically important! Figuring out who is eligible, how you staff, etc. makes all the difference between responsible enforcement and de-facto exemptions from the platform's policies.

• @mikesalazar777 Salazar on x

  Well, it happens on Twitter as well. Blue ticks bullying, posting repulsive, racist, body-shaming stuff, tweeting misinformation, veiled threats and fake news, slandering people and having regular users piled on. And nothing at all ever happens. https://www.businessinsider.com/ .…

• @szhang_ds @szhang_ds on x

  @guyro I'd be fine with it if there were actually extra checks. Even if only a small subset were sampled and surveyed. In 2+ years at SI, I never saw a review of Xcheck-blocked enforcement. Maybe tasks were automatically filed, but if so, they didn't have owners and just auto-exp…

• @byrontau Byron Tau on x

  This highlights the problem with creating private institutions to do quasi-legal functions or perform industry self-regulation is there is zero penalty for not being truthful to those institutions unlike a court or a legislature.

• @samidh @samidh on x

  So how do you reconcile this essentially impossible accuracy vs. latency vs. resourcing tradeoff? There's no ideal solution, but here are some things that could help: 1/ list transparency, 2/ adequate staffing, and 3/ better user messaging & appeals.

• @oliviasolon Olivia Solon on x

  I think we can all agree that FB's “this is not a story” strategy yesterday was a resounding failure

• @marietjeschaake Marietje Schaake on x

  Facebook lies, deceives and fails to be transparent again. I honestly wonder how people can still work there. As much as these findings by @JeffHorwitz are a scathing indictment of the advertising giant, where are regulators to force and enforce independent oversight? ↘️ https://…

• @mattnavarra Matt Navarra on x

  @JeffHorwitz Looks like Facebook is preparing to publish an official response to your story... But currently the page is unavailable: https://about.fb.com/... https://twitter.com/...

• @karenkornbluh Karen Kornbluh on x

  This and the story from last week about incomplete data given to researchers should be absorbed together. Lack of consistent enforcement of *publicly stated* standards and transparency - when these platforms are so center to democratic debate - isn't sustainable https://twitter.c…

• @samidh @samidh on x

  Finally, I do wish the WSJ article had better highlighted the progress FB has made already, including on the issues flagged above. There is more to do and I hope that this moment of broader reflection is an opportunity for the teams doing this hard work to get even more done.

• @daveleeft Dave Lee on x

  @oliviasolon I'm amazed that their strategy in dealing with this kind of thing remains almost entirely unchanged since Cambridge Analytica. First learning on the reporter by saying it's not a story, then the “setting the record straight” post that unintentionally boosts the repor…

• @justinhendrix Justin Hendrix on x

  Facebook Oversight Board issues statement regarding @JeffHorwitz exclusive in WSJ: re Facebook special treatment of high profile accounts: https://twitter.com/...

• @profcarroll David Carroll on x

  You're an accessory to fraud with such a toothless response. https://twitter.com/...

• @rottenindenmark Michael Hobbes on x

  With great power comes less responsibility, perfect system. https://twitter.com/...

• @bcappelbaum Binyamin Appelbaum on x

  So it's like the United States basically https://twitter.com/...

• @kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x

  Giving some users special treatment isn't unheard of. Twitter does it for world leaders, too. But it does create some real problems as this story points out (and as we saw repeatedly with a former US President...)

• @kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x

  FB has been giving famous or well-known users special treatment when it comes to content moderation. Good look here at how those users are handled and why it can be a major problem 👇🏼 https://twitter.com/...

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  The WSJ piece repeatedly cites Facebook's own documents pointing to the need for changes that are in fact already underway at the company. We have new teams, new resources and an overhaul of the process that is an existing work-stream at Facebook.

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  There are other issues. In his article, Jeff Horwitz quotes Mark Zuckerberg making statements to Congress about our misinformation policies and Fact Checking program.

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  In 2018, we went on to say: “This typically applies to high profile, regularly visited Pages or pieces of content on Facebook so that they are not mistakenly removed or left up. Many media organizations' Pages — from Channel 4 to The BBC and The Verge — are cross checked.”

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  “We may also Cross Check reports on content posted by celebrities, governments, or Pages where we have made mistakes in the past.”

• @andymstone Andy Stone on x

  “For example, we have Cross Checked an American civil rights activist's account to avoid mistakenly deleting instances of him raising awareness of hate speech he was encountering.”

• @alex_malouf Alex Malouf on x

  How can anyone work at comms at Facebook, I have no idea. Every day there's a new leak which shows how they've lied, how they've deceived someone, and behaved unethically. This company is irredeemable, reputation-wise. https://twitter.com/...

• @libertieseu @libertieseu on x

  .@Facebook is building a 2-tier society that offers privileges to VIP users 👇 https://twitter.com/...

• @shabanianaram Aram Shabanian on x

  The opposite is also true. Facebook moderators target individual accounts for repeated harassment, usually due to personal political disagreements. There is little oversight. @Facebook is without a doubt the worst social media offender. https://twitter.com/...

• @issielapowsky Issie Lapowsky on x

  Reading this @JeffHorwitz story really closely because it is just so chock full of info, including this bit: that XCheck “didn't include all candidates for public office, at times effectively granting incumbents in elections an advantage over challengers.” https://www.wsj.com/...

• @szhang_ds @szhang_ds on x

  @issielapowsky @JeffHorwitz On the flip side, whitelisted candidates weren't removed after the election while I was there. There existed essentially a hack that you could run for state senate and get 10% of the vote, and 2 years later FB wouldn't fact check you (actual example; t…

• @jeffhorwitz Jeff Horwitz on x

  Exactly how bad this problem was isn't clear (partly because controls on XCheck were so poor.) One thing that this story didn't get into as much as I'd like is Facebook's inability to keep things simple — there were scores of different XCheck tags and Whitelists. https://twitter.…

• @oversightboard Oversight Board on x

  Independent oversight is essential to ensuring safe and fair discourse on Facebook, and the Oversight Board remains committed to enforcing accountability, consistency and fairness in Facebook's content moderation processes.