Meta & Children's Online Safety"The best research suggests that Facebook is net bad for well-being"
[HOW DOES FACEBOOK AFFECT WELL-BEING?] …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
Evidence home · Recorded themes · All evidence
Published evidence
Body image & eating disorders
Excerpts with this recorded theme.
68 published excerpts. Page 1 of 3.
Margaret Stewart: "it seems patently obvious that phone usage, selfie-culture, and photo editing are contributing to anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia... I think we have to assume we are contributors/amplifiers"
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. …
Margaret Stewart
Knowledge
"Social media causes social comparison and poor body image"
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"[W]e'll once again allow people to create and share face-altering effects on Instagram"
You may recall that last year we temporarily removed some face altering AR effects from Instagram, following …
Unnamed employee
Profits over Safety
A "key consideration" over whether to lift the ban on cosmetic surgery effect filters was the risk of a negative impact on "Competitiveness/Growth"
A. Meeting Goal …
Unnamed employee
Profits over Safety
Zuckerberg (on cosmetic surgery filter ban): "It has always felt paternalistic to me that we've limited people's ability to present themselves in these ways... I'm supportive of... lifting restrictions"
Andy O'Connell: "Mark- Next Thursday we are meeting to decide whether we should continue, modify, or lift the temporary ban on Cosmetic Surgery AR Effects that we instituted in …
Andy O'Connell · Mark Zuckerberg and names withheld in filing
Profits over SafetyKnowledge
"Teen girls perceive Instagram as the 'worst' social media app in terms of body and appearance comparison."
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"We know that SSI and ED have a significantly disproportionate large teen audience."
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
Appearance comparisons are made much more frequently on IG vs competitors and often lead to body image issues
████: "CWB [Central Well-Being] is advocating that if we want to pursue NAC [Negative Appearance Comparison] measurement, it should go to the VP level" Justin Cheng: "1. …
Justin Cheng and names withheld in filing
Profits over SafetyConcealment
"i wish we had someone who could say 'bombarding women with a message on how to become pretty multiple times per day is bad for their mental health'"
████: "i wish we had someone who could say 'bombarding women with a message on how to become pretty multiple times per day is bad for their mental health'" …
Names withheld in filing
Profits over Safety
"Among teens, body image, social comparison and particularly sleep problems are more intense, have higher reach, and/or have more teens saying that IG makes it worse."
NAC prevalence increases with time spent overall, particularly among women." …
Unnamed employee
Profits over SafetyKnowledge
"Immediate Product vulnerabilities... Prominence of eating disorder-related content in searches and recommendation surfaces"
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
PLAINTIFFS’ CHARACTERIZATION
"ED content is too narrowly defined by our policies so we under-enforce on what the broader public might consider to be ED content"
Unnamed employee, as quoted by plaintiffs
Knowledge
PLAINTIFFS’ CHARACTERIZATION
According to a 2019 survey of 30,000 Instagram users (which Meta never disclosed), 18% reported viewing content that promotes eating disorders or unhealthy weight loss in the previous week.
Unnamed employee, as quoted by plaintiffs
Knowledge
"It's a social comparison app, fucking get used to it"
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"66% of teen girls on IG experience negative social comparison"
Social comparison is worse on Instagram. It is perceived as real life, but based on celebrity standards. Explore and profile stalking enables never-ending rabbit holes. …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"Examples of bad experiences often in policy gaps… Thinspiration… Easy to find content adjacent to eating disorder part of SSI and to broader social comparison and body image issue-triggers."
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
"[I]t's hard to defend why we'd block certain terms in hashtag search and not in account search, and it's easy to find violating ED accounts in a couple of taps. When I search for 'thinspo' or 'proana' the accounts shown are overwhelmingly violating."
████: [Heavily Redacted Content]... …
Names withheld in filing
Knowledge
"we're talking about actively encouraging young girls into body dysmorphia"
Margaret Stewart: "We are asking for your support to update our policies to: 1. Disallow effects that mimic plastic surgery for first party (FB/IG/MSGR) and third party effects. …
Margaret Stewart · Andrew Bosworth · John Hegeman · Karina Newton · Adam Mosseri and names withheld in filing
Profits over SafetyKnowledge
Meta had "inconsistent filtering" on potential IIC accounts and content
The Internal Audit (IA) team has completed the IG Youth Well-being Assurance Audit - Phase 1. …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge
PLAINTIFFS’ CHARACTERIZATION
Instagram heavily emphasized content that promoted negative appearance comparison. …
Unnamed employee, as quoted by plaintiffs
Knowledge
PLAINTIFFS’ CHARACTERIZATION
"the algorithm behind new-user top-account recommendations may be unintentionally amplifying negative social comparison"
Unnamed employee, as quoted by plaintiffs
Knowledge
Shilpa Mody: "We really do recommend a LOT of high-NAC content to teens"
[I]t turns out that at the high end, we really do recommend a LOT of high-NAC content to teens! Like for the top 10% of teens, our recs in Explore are 57% high-NAC :/
Shilpa Mody
Knowledge
"SSI/ED has a disproportionately large teen audience on IG with SSI/ED teen SWOP being 2.5x that of adults."
Teens have higher prevalences of violating content than non-teens (1.4x-1.8x SWOP), driven by elevated levels of bullying, SSI, hate speech, nudity and VNI." …
Unnamed employee
Knowledge