"Instagram suicide and self-injury (SSI) issues reveal we are behind where we need to be"
"We've always removed content that promotes SSI, but at the advice of mental health experts, we've allowed suicide admission content as it provides an outlet for people to cope and get support. Following the tragic suicide of a 14-year-old girl in the UK that her family linked to her access to self-harm content, Instagram has been under intense scrutiny over the last few weeks around our policies and enforcement."
"Policy: after further consultation, we decided that graphic cutting images should be removed as the potential for modeling, normalizing, or triggering self-harm in others outweighs the value of sharing the content. Non-graphic self-mutilation or healed cuts imagery will be left up but blurred / marked as sensitive and removed from discovery."
"Enforcement: because content outside of promotion did not violate our policies, we had no detection or enforcement in place at all for any other content, and most worryingly the content was easy to discover through search, hashtags, IG Explore, etc. We have a swat team across IG Wellbeing, Community Integrity and Community Operations sprinting to clean up hashtags, clean up content, apply warning screens, and reduce visibility of potential SSI content from discovery surfaces."
"We also really need to build proactive detection for content. This means ensuring we have the review flows set up right to label the content we're finding, and training our classifiers."
"To me, this is a painful lesson on what we mean when we say areas are at 'risk' in our maturity framework. Why was SSI in this state? As some folks may remember, in 2017 we had a lockdown around FB Live in particular, focusing on getting help to people expressing suicidal thoughts. The work we did then has resulted in hundreds of wellness checks from first responders that has saved lives. In retrospect, that good work gave us a false sense of security on our SSI work, and as we ramped up our teams we chose to first put people first on other critical areas that sorely needed attention, such as child safety, terrorism and drugs. This half we rebooted our SSI efforts, and literally days before this became a full-blown fire, we were in the first roadmap review for the new CI SSI team – fittingly, the key takeaway was that the space is broader and more complex than the 'imminent harm' work we'd historically done. I'm glad we have a team ready to jump in, but it's painful to see the gap we left."
Molly Cutler: "On January 22, the BBC reported that exposure to graphic images of cutting and self-injury on Instagram contributed to the suicide of 14-year-old Molly Russell. Our policy permitted these images unless they clearly promoted or celebrated suicide or self-injury. Graphic images shared with no caption or context did not violate our policy. These non-violating images were discoverable in Instagram Explore and did not count in the >30% threshold used to implement the 'hashtag playbook' on Instagram, which reduces the discoverability of hashtags with a high proportion of violating content.
We faced several weeks of intense press and policymaker criticism, largely confined to the UK, focused primarily on the availability of this content on Instagram, and secondarily on the discoverability of this content on Instagram. Throughout this period, our product policy team appeared confident that our policy permitting graphic cutting content was likely to remain largely in place, as informed by consistent engagement with experts on these issues, and we worked to pursue a long-term product strategy of reducing the discoverability of non-violating graphic cutting content, an incomplete but meaningful response to the criticism. Starting on January 26, in response to escalating criticism, we said that we would 'undertake a full review of our enforcement policies and technologies' around self-harm.
On February 4, we met with experts and decided to change our policy. Going forward, we will remove graphic cutting images even in the context of admitting one's mental health struggles, because we now recognize that the potential for modeling how to self-harm, normalizing self-harm, and/or triggering self-harm in others outweighs the value of sharing the content. In addition, we will make product changes to reduce the discoverability of non-graphic self-harm content—such as healed scars—by preventing it from appearing in search, hashtags, the explore tab, or recommendations. These announced changes have landed well and we got credit—but do not undo the damage we have incurred as a result of this protracted cycle."
"We had the wrong policy on graphic cutting images, and were too slow to reconsider/schedule engagement with experts about our policy in response to escalating criticism."
"We strategically de-prioritized SSI product work on IG. This was due in part to the previous narrow policy resulting in low impact of work—relatively small proportion of content eligible for removal under previous policy."
Nick Clegg: "Thx Molly – a thankless task, but am grateful to you for doing this.
It's all accurate – except that four days after the BBC story broke I said publicly (carried in all UK headlines on the day) that we would review all our policies, and that we would do 'whatever it takes' to address the legitimate concerns raised. Javi, Guy and I were in touch by email – and I had alerted Sheryl, Mark and even the Board to the gravity of the issue.
Yet, despite Guy's team's great cooperation, it was not till the large meeting in Sheryl's office – I can't remember the date – with myself, Chris C, Schrep, Dave Wehner and others that there was any recognition that the policy was too heavily skewed towards the needs of those committing SSI rather than those susceptible to copying it.
This lack of connection between what we commit to publicly and what we do internally really worried, and slightly shocked, me.
I don't know how/whether you want to reflect any of this – but it is important context."
[HOW DOES FACEBOOK AFFECT WELL-BEING?]
"Overall: The best research suggests that Facebook is net bad for well-being, but the negative effect is small and there are also positive uses. The science here is still early, primarily US based, and relying on self report – we have a lot more we need to learn."
[HOW DOES FACEBOOK AFFECT YOUTH WELL-BEING?]
"Overall: Findings for teens largely mirror findings for adults; overall associations between social media use and well-being are net negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being. Moderate use of digital technology is not intrinsically harmful and may be advantageous."
"Problematic use (colloquially, 'addiction'): Feeling that that Facebook has a serious, negative impact on one's sleep, relationships, work, or lives, combined with lack of control over Facebook use. Occurs for 3.1% of Facebook MAP, with 55% experiencing a milder form of unintentional use (i.e., 'spending too much time on social media'). More common in younger men and teens."
"'Addiction' is used colloquially but is not accepted in the clinical or academic literature. It is not clear that Facebook could ever cause a 'true' addiction, though processes like reward-learning and habit-formation underlie addiction and may occur for people using Facebook."
"What this means: The most severe forms of problematic use are relatively rare, but negative feelings about one's Facebook use are common - particularly in younger people. This is a serious problem that we need to address. There are many aspects of Facebook that contribute to low-control or unintentional behaviors, and these could be fixed to support people using Facebook in ways that they want to, such a reducing notifications and making them more relevant, making time controls more salient, and introducing pause points into News Feed."
"Social comparison: Evaluating yourself negatively with respect to others whom you perceive to be better off than you. While comparing yourself to others is normal online and offline, the type of comparison that leads to negative self-evaluations is heightened on Facebook and can be harmful for well-being. Occurs for 40% of Facebook MAP, with ~5% experiencing chronic social comparison (similar for Instagram). More common in people under 30 (including teens) and women."
"What meaningful impact on overall well-being do changes on-platform actually have? We have built products following theoretical principles about what is beneficial for well-being, but the impact of these products on well-being outcomes over time has not been established."
"FB is slightly negative for well-being (WB) and we have a phased plan to turn this around."
"1. What we know: Despite positives, average net effect is slightly negative. Science is still early, primarily US based, and relies on self report.
2. Vision: 2019: FB 'best-in-class' amongst social media apps. 2020 & beyond: FB/IG net positive to well-being.
3. Framing: Using an integrity-like framework to drive progress on sub-areas: Problematic Use, Social Comparison and Loneliness (plus more to be defined). Prioritizing Problematic Use for product work, investing in substantial understand/research work.
4. Communications Opportunity: Seize the opportunity for Facebook Inc. to lead the industry on well-being."
"Overall impact of Facebook on well-being is negative but small."
"We don't yet fully understand reasons why Facebook may be net negative."
Youth: "Overall net impact on well-being is negative but small (similar to adults).
Moderate use of digital technology has benefits.
Depends on the individual.
Most vulnerable teens offline are most vulnerable teens online."
Instagram: "Limited understanding, though initial work suggests similar to FB - slightly net negative."
"IG teens worse than IG adults on general well-being, negative affect, loneliness, and depression."
"Current areas of focus
Problematic Use: Serious, negative impact on sleep, relationships, work, or lives, combined with lack of control over FB use.
Prevalence: 3.1% severe (US), 55% mild (global). More common for younger people.
Social Comparison: Evaluating yourself negatively to others whom you perceive as better off. Happens online and offline, though amplified on FB.
Prevalence: 5% chronic (global), 40% mild (global). More common in people under 30 and women.
Loneliness: Difference between quality of friendships person has and wants. People who are already feeling lonely turn to FB to feel better, and reducing FB use can improve loneliness.
Prevalence: 7% chronic (global), 36% mild (global). Higher in younger adults (age 18-24), veterans, and LGBTQ."
"Important to note that just because they haven't found evidence of causation doesn't mean that it doesn't exist; they may just not have find the way to detect/measure it. I can tell you as someone who spends a LOT of time with teenage girls, both in my own home and through the high schools, it seems patently obvious that phone usage, selfie-culture, and photo editing are contributing to anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia. While we may not have a smoking gun on the cause, I think we have to assume we are contributors/amplifiers and tread very carefully on anything that further contributes."
Monika Bickert: "Hey there. I was trying to report this profile for being underage and got a weird error message that reporting was not available.
I was hoping we could review this profile, which a school sent me, for belonging to an underage child... Antigone and ████ added you for awareness of the report flow issue and because for a related profile, which I was able to report, the reporting flow was pretty bad. I wondered if we should look into it. It was obviously structured to deter any reports."
Antigone Davis: "Regarding the reporting flow, I agree it is more than pretty bad and suggests we want to deter underage reporting. It would be great to prioritize a fix given the significant public focus on underage accounts. ████ possible? I also will flag this as part of age management effort the company is kicking off."
████: "Improving this is not currently in the plans for FRX and looking at these numbers seem quite small (only 15K completions per week), but happy to be looped into the age management effort to see what requirements there might be there if that would help?"
"We have defined 'problematic use' as the combination of lack of control + negative life impact from FB use"
"This was informed by the academic literature, but is not an official definition - it could be argued to be both too lenient and too narrow"
"There is not enough clinical or neuroscientific evidence to classify a true Facebook 'addiction' - but people are still experiencing problems."
"Scales to assess problematic use have been described in the academic literature, but there is no agreed-upon definition or cut-off score."
"55% of people feel they 'spend too much time on social media' and people often endorse losing track of time, feeling guilty, using FB in inappropriate contexts, etc."
"In a US survey of 20,000 FB users, 3.1% endorsed problematic use
They are more likely to be younger and male, and experiencing a recent major life event like a move or break up. They spend more time overall, have more sessions, spend more time late at night, receive and respond to more notifications, and deactivate their accounts more frequently."
"Figure 1: The prevalence of reported problematic use is highest among teens and young adults. Men are also more likely than women to report experiencing problematic use."
"We have defined 'problematic use' as the combination of lack of control + negative life impact from FB use
This was informed by the academic literature, but is not an official definition - it could be argued to be both too lenient and too narrow"
"A proposed taxonomy of types of problematic use is informed by concepts related to addiction: reward learning and habitual behavior"
"There is not enough clinical or neuroscientific evidence to classify a true Facebook 'addiction' - but people are still experiencing problems."
"Certain rewarding Facebook behaviors (e.g., receiving social approval, sharing about yourself) do activate the brain's dopamine system, but in fundamentally different ways than addictive drugs."
"We can use the 'addiction' framework as a useful orienting point to understand common Facebook problems"
"Facebook's rewards are easily accessible, available all the time, limitless, and unpredictable, so it is easy to consume too much."
"Facebook cues can trigger automatic, learned behavioral responses that can feel unintentional or out of the users' control."
"Facebook may provide an escape or distraction from real-life negative experiences, so that negative emotions could trigger Facebook use."
Eduardo ████: "I believe everyone knows that I'm an advisor at an anti-human trafficking non-profit.
The moment Backpage was taken down, all of their data showed that IG had become the leading two-sided marketplace for human trafficking. This is something I have brought up, and it's a challenging situation, which will be made untennable (more) with e2e. This is a problem for which centralization will assist, but the dynamics of IG will demand product interventions beyond the standard detect -> remediate -> measure integrity framework."
David Ginsberg: "Mark, As part of the contingency headcount process we are requesting additional headcount to fund the 'Well-being 10x' initiative."
"Current research (internal and external) tells us that despite all the positive effects that FB provides (e.g. meaningful interactions, belonging, social support), there is increasing scientific evidence (particularly in the US) that the average net effect of FB on people's well-being is slightly negative."
"We also have deep understanding around three negative drivers that occur frequently on FB and impact people's well-being:
1. Problematic use (prevalence: 55% mild, 3.1% severe)
2. Social comparison (prevalence: 40% mild, 5% severe)
3. Loneliness (prevalence: 36% mild, 7% severe)"
"Our ask is for 17 HC (6 ENG) on Blue, and 7 HC (1 ENG) for IG"
"On IG, we have .2 researcher and no DE/DS/CDS/Design/PMs focused on well-being."
"Without additional investment, we are on a trajectory to deliver exploratory findings and continue our research at a slower pace (and NO product changes)."
Susan Li: "Following up on the review yesterday – this was not funded, in part given the number of open heads (esp. on Blue) at the moment. Having said that, both Mark and Sheryl wanted to emphasize they think this is work worth doing (and consequently reprioritizing other things). I know this isn't a terribly satisfying answer, but we are constrained to 178 ENG heads for the remainder of the year and it's only April, so funding decisions are now far and few between."
Tom Alison: "Dropping the thread a bit. This is a bummer but not unexpected.
Before we rush to fund this, can we make sure we talk about all of the open headcount issues in my world:
1. Privacy is an effort Will had asked me to start and I created a seed team on Identity. PM, Research, and Eng is now getting quite restless and frustrated since they have no heads to go and do the work properly. The plan has been to review this with Fidji for sometime but it's gotten pushed back quite a bit. We definitely need to weigh this against Wellbeing.
2. The News tab, which Mark has made public commitments to at this point.
It's possible we may need to ask all these teams to hold tight for the next 2 weeks while we complete the org-wide prioritization. But we should also make sure we refer back to our priority list and reconcile these efforts against that so we can stack rank them."
David Ginsberg: "How do we want to communicate to the team? or do we hold until we have a plan/process for moving forward?"
Adam Mosseri: "Susan, thanks for the update. Unfortunately I don't see us funding this from Instagram any time soon, we recently ran a divestment exercise and are still too tight in a number of places."
Tom Alison: "I think we should be straightforward with them. Tell them Mark did not fund this. That means we need to look to see if we can fund it by re-prioritizing other projects in FB App. Since we don't have a process for this (but are working on) it's going to take the team a bit longer before we can give them a definitive answer, but we'll try to have something more substantial to say in the next 2-3 weeks."
"We sourced suicide and self-injury admission content from an external partner"
"Hypothesis: We would not provide resources to any users or delete violating content as we expected neither user nor proactive reports on them"
[Problem #1 – Detection Test]:
• Problem: "We did not provide resources to users who posted suicide or self-injury admission content or resources were provided late"
• Proximate: "Content was neither user reported nor proactively enqueued"
• Proximate: "We had to rely on user reports as content was not proactively enqueued"
• Intermediate: "Content was neither user reported nor proactively enqueued"
• Root Cause: "Violating content scored significantly lower than the established threshold
Enforcement 4.b.ii (Unintended issue)"
• Root Cause: "Currently, we are keeping thresholds high to keep volumes low due to the resource constraints on the number of reviewers we have to review proactively reported content
Enforcement 4.b.i (tradeoff)"
[Problem Summary]:
• Problem: "Not providing resources to users at all or on time"
• Resulting Risk: "Increased risk of imminent harm"
• Work in Progress: "Classifier work expanding to cover markets in Q2"
• Work in Progress: "Resource expansion for NA being discussed"
"Overall, teens have significantly more negative experiences than adults. Perceived reach was higher among teens than adults for 12 out of the 14 problem areas that we asked about."
"Seeing SSI content and seeing someone get bullied or harassed top the list in terms of intensity: more than half of people who've encountered these problems rate them as Very Bad Experiences. Experiencing bullying and having your account compromised are also particularly intense experiences."
"Percent rating as a Very Bad Experience (in top 2 intensity buckets: 'Very bad' or 'Pretty bad')
For SEEING (darker bars) or EXPERIENCING (lighter bars)"
"The most common surface for 9 out of 14 negative experiences is Explore. In addition, people most commonly encounter suspicious accounts when they're followed by them, see spam in Feed, see drug sales in Stories, and experience bullying and solicitation in Direct."
"We are on track to beat top-line goals across DAP, MSI, sessions and time spent. In particular, visitation to Facebook ('sessions') has angle changed upwards this half compared to 2018. Both time & sessions are growing across all regions and session is also growing across power & marginal users, with attributable product improvements explaining 86% of sessions growth and 78% of time growth. MSI measured across Feed & Stories is growing robustly YoY due to product work, without which we would remain negative."
"Teen engagement in the US has remained flat. A lower proportion of each age cohort adopts Facebook as teens, and it takes longer for 20+ age cohorts to reach full MAP penetration. We do not plan on working specifically on initiatives focused on the teen years but want to kick off an effort focused on college years to get these teens back later on. We're also exploring teen-specific efforts in developing markets where we haven't lost the battle yet."
"Discussion topics"
"Interests: In order to succeed in interests, we will need x-family infrastructure to manage privacy preferences and bridge domain specific interest graphs (Groups, Ads, Feed, IG); we're in talks with CPS on this but need to prioritize this across Inc."
"Teens: Are we comfortable with not focusing on teens in developed markets?"
Joel Kaplan: "In the meantime, wanted to provide a bit more color re the policy POV on the points Will raises. Our views are that:"
1. "We agree that it's most important to make quick progress around age verification with respect to FB and especially IG—this is where the public and policymaking pressure is focused in UK and elsewhere in Europe (we are also seeing growing pressure around age in India);"
Fidji Simo: "I'm on PTO but given the heated debate I just thought I would check: does the proposal change anything at all for Blue and do you have any concern I should know about?"
Andrew Bocking: "Blue should be fine! Enjoy your PTO!
We already collect age and the main thing we (FB Growth) are doing is making that more robust (eg no default age higher than minimum age; currently is 25!). We are testing various ways to make this more defensible now while minimizing any friction at Account creation, which is our typical bread and butter.
Beyond that the big Q is whether we proactively kick people off we 'think' are below minimum age (ie 13) which would obviously reduce MAP."
Child sexual exploitationHashtagsFriend/Account SuggestionsContent Algorithm
"We may be facilitating possible groomers finding young people through following, hashtags, explore, and search."
• "Created two test users"
• "One followed teen hashtags"
• "One followed sexy teen accounts"
[1. Discoverability]:
• Problem: "IG recommended a minor through top suggested to an account engaged in groomer-esque behavior."
• Intermediate: "The account followed and searched for sexualized minor accounts."
• Root: "The recommendation algorithms worked as intended.
1. Product"
• Root: "There is not currently a whitelist to determine which accounts can and cannot be recommended in top suggested.
3.a.Protocol"
"Overall IG: 7% of all follow recommendations to adults were minors"
"Groomers: 27% of all follow recommendations to groomers were minors"
• "We are recommending nearly 4X as many minors to groomers (nearly 2 million minors in the last 3 months)"
• "22% of those recommendations resulted in a follow request"
"Instagram is an inevitable and unavoidable component of teens lives. Teens can't switch off from Instagram even if they want to."
"Instagram has become the ID card of this generation. It is the go-to tool for both measuring and gathering social prestige."
"Instagram sets the standards not only for how teens should look and act but also for how they should think and feel."
"Teens feel themselves to be at the forefront of new social behaviours to which there is no consensus on how to behave or cope. They sorely lack empathetic voices to whom they can turn for support."
"Teens talk of Instagram in terms of an 'addicts narrative' spending too much time indulging in a compulsive behaviour that they know is negative but feel powerless to resist."
"The pressure to 'be present and perfect' is a defining characteristic of the anxiety teens face around Instagram. This restricts both their ability to be emotionally honest and also to create space for themselves to switch off."
"Anxiety around what to post and the potential cost involved in posting the wrong thing means teens are switching from proactive to passive engagement with the platform."
"Teens are hooked despite how it makes them feel... Instagram is addictive, and time-spend on platform is having a negative impact on mental health"
"'Part of it [worst thing about IG] is just that it's just so addictive. Every time I pick up my phone it's the first thing I look at. At night when I should sleep, I just scroll through Explore' - UK, Male"
"They have an addicts' narrative about their Instagram use - it can make them feel good, it can make them feel bad, they wish they could spend less time caring about it, but they can't help themselves."
"They recognise that without even thinking every time they pick up their phone, they automatically go to Instagram. They know they stay up later than they should and miss out on sleep to stay plugged in."
"But they also know that this isn't good for them or their mental health."
"At exam time, they recognise their lack of willpower and use apps to control their screen time and get away from social media."
"Time-spend was one of the 'worst' aspects of teens' relationship to the platform. They were open to help reducing screen time, or making their experience more constructive."
"Feelings in the moment dictate how well you cope... In-the-moment feelings determines resilience to cope with content they see online."
• "Underlying emotional states play a key role in a young person's ability to deal with the content they see. If they are having a bad day, they know they are more vulnerable to what they see online."
• "This was particularly true for social comparison. The more a young person is feeling bad, the more vulnerable they are to negatively comparing themselves to others."
• "Some young people were able to recognise the impact of looking at IG on their feelings for the day, and had tried to stop themselves looking at their feed in order to protect themselves."
• "Others' recognised that they were still compelled to look at Instagram, even if they knew it would make them feel bad."
"'When you're miserable you look at every comment on your profile and think that they comments are bad. You're feeling bad and so you think that people are giving you fake support, because you know your spotty and feeling fat' - UK Female"
"Young people need help in seeing the value of creating balance in their use of social media. Knowing when you need to take a break, and what steps make you feel better is important."
"Instagram is the worst platform for mental health... Instagram is called out for being the most problematic social media platform for mental health. But it's also the most popular."
"Young people are acutely aware that Instagram is bad for their mental health, yet are compelled to spend time on the app for fear of missing out on cultural and social trends."
"They associate IG with:
• Intense pressure to conform to social stereotypes
• Pressure to match the money and body shapes of famous influencers
• Need for validation and likes from others
• Bullying, hate speech and friendship conflict
• Over-sexualisation of girls' bodies
• Inappropriate adverts that sell weight loss products."
"'Depression and anxiety are so much worse than before, and the only thing that's changed is social media.' - UK Female"
"Teens blame generational MH issues on Instagram... Constant comparison on IG is 'the reason' why there are higher levels of anxiety & depression in young people."
"Social comparison and perfectionism are nothing new, but young people are dealing with this on an unprecedented scale."
"The proliferation of new and different ways to compare themselves to others, combined with constant access to means that there is no way to escape social comparison on IG."
"This was called out as being the number one reason why IG is worse than other platforms for MH. And, young people openly attribute their increased level of anxiety and depression to Instagram."
"'The reason why our generation is so messed up and has higher anxiety and depression than our parents is because we have to deal with social media. Everyone feels like they have to be perfect' - UK, Female"
"If young people are already calling this out, it won't take long before others' pick up on this too."
"As humans we have underlying traits which social media exacerbates. Instagram doesn't cause these, but it enhances them. Growing up immersed in the social media world, young people are increasingly developing personality traits which are harmful to their wellbeing."
"Protective features can also be weapons."
"Protective functions on social media don't make sense to young people as they can easily be weaponised against them."
"All of the protective functions online - such as speaking to friends, or reporting content, or blocking someone - can be used against them."
"Allegiances shift, there are moles everywhere - and it's difficult to know who to trust, particularly on social media where anyone can 'fake their personality'."
"Blocking or unfollowing someone could mean that you can't see when you're being made fun of, or ignite a bigger issue."
"The practical tools that young people can use to protect themselves don't work."
"Ads target insecurity & feeds unhealthy habits"
"Multiple teenagers called out ad targeting on Instagram for showing them weight loss products."
"Young people called out Instagram for targeting them with adverts on weight loss and body image- whether this is weight loss lollypops, juices, weight trainers or teeth whitening."
"This directly lead to some teens purchasing products such as detox teas, weight trainers, weight loss lollipops, or not eating properly to lose weight."
"Others took these adverts as 'inspiration' to lose weight and exercise more, they take away the message that they should be doing things differently to match the standards they see on images daily."
"This is highly damaging, and likely to tip vulnerable young people into disordered eating habits."
"Targeting teens with weight-loss adverts should be prohibited. Advertising standards accept that young people are unable to critically appraise messages that sell them products."
"The impact of Facebook Inc.'s products on people's well-being is a complex topic that we haven't fully understood yet. However, we have sufficient information to warrant action now, while we continue to deepen our understanding."
"Despite all the positive effects that FB provides (e.g. meaningful interactions, belonging, social support), there is increasing scientific evidence (particularly in the US, see here and here) that the average net effect of FB on people's well-being is slightly negative. The science here is still early, primarily US based, and relying on self report – we have a lot more we need to learn."
"The best external research suggests that the overall impact of Facebook on well-being is negative but small. This does not mean that there aren't aspects of Facebook that are positive for well-being. Facebook is a platform where people can enhance their social relationships and fulfill important needs like belonging, support, accomplishment, and pursuing interests - uniquely powered by access to social connections. However, Facebook can have a negative effect when people feel a lack of control over the experience or when use undermines other positive aspects of life. The science here is still early, primarily US based, and relying on self report – we have a lot more we need to learn."
"Instagram. Our current understanding of how using Instagram affects well-being is limited due to fewer external and internal studies. Some work suggests the impact of Instagram on well-being is similar to using Facebook in the moment. Our initial work internally has not found a relationship between well-being on Instagram and time spent on Instagram, although Instagram teens scored worse than adults on general well-being, negative affect (US, UK, BR), loneliness (US, UK, BR), and depression (only in US)."
"Problematic Use: Occurs for 3.1% of Facebook MAP (US data only), with 55% globally experiencing a milder form of unintentional use (i.e., 'spending too much time on social media')."
████: "I just caught up with Brett W and he forgot to give us some relevant feedback in the morning review around private accounts. It seems that in the Tuesday review for Well-being, Adam and Vishal both pushed on us starting to move towards creating accounts private by default."
████: "ah thanks. I just got looped into a thread here from ████. I asked about default to private vs. defaulting no DM'ing from people you aren't connected to as part of private account. My POV is the latter would be more impactful for bullying. We have tested this in the past and it has been very negative for ecosystem metrics IIRC"
████: "I think we could try for Teens in the US as a first pass. we can't really do Teens outside US as we don't have age modeling esp at registration. I'm not sure we have the data at registration to be confident in teen/non-teen at registration either, tbh"
Darius Kilstein: "holy shit"
Darius Kilstein: "What's the rationale for the push?"
Darius Kilstein: "This will likely smash engagement, DAP, MAP etc"
████: "current climate? policy pressure? potentially contributing to teen suicides?"
Darius Kilstein: "What policy pressure?"
████: "What are we doing to protect minors"
Sources include internal documents, public filings and press reports. “Alleged by plaintiffs” denotes the plaintiffs’ characterization, not Meta’s own words. Source labels identify provenance, not a finding of fact.
Meta & Children's Online Safety