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A new Instagram feature is to be introduced that will allow parents to supervise what their children are doing online
Photo: FILIP SINGER / EPA
A few days after the hearing of the former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen before the US Senate, communications chief Nick Clegg announced several changes in the company's services.
Haugen had submitted internal research results, draft presentations and chats to the "Wall Street Journal". The newspaper began publishing a series of articles in mid-September that was also based on these documents. It was about Instagram, among other things. According to the articles, the app worsens body image problems for one in three young girls and even induces suicidal thoughts in some teenagers. The reports also dealt with suggestions for redesigning Facebook's recommendation algorithms in order to reduce the reach of false information and inflammatory content. Mark Zuckerberg personally moderated these suggestions, it was said, because they could lead to less interaction among users.
Frances Haugen revealed himself after the series of articles on television and confirmed the allegations of the Wall Street Journal against Facebook before the Senate.
Nick Clegg, Facebook's head of communications, told CNN on Sunday in the “State of the Union” program that the company would introduce new functions on both the Facebook social network and Instagram.
Instagram will get new control options "so that parents can supervise what their children do online."
Clegg repeats Zuckerberg's promise from January
Clegg went on to say, “We're going to introduce something that I think will make a significant difference: our systems will see if a teen is watching the same content over and over, and if that content may not be contributing to their well-being, we will give an incentive to look at other content. ”In addition,“ something we would call 'take a break' will be introduced: “We'll simply tell teenagers to take breaks from Instagram.”
According to Clegg, Facebook should contain less political content in the future.
He said that on NBC News' "Meet the Press" show.
“One of the things we've heard from our users in the US and around the world is that they want to see more friends and less politics.
That is why we are testing ways to reduce the presence of politics in Facebook's offer. "
Around the US presidential election last year, Facebook had already implemented this in the US, but then reversed it - this is also one of Frances Haugen's allegations.
Nick Clegg said: “It is simply not true that we stopped these measures immediately.
In fact, we kept most of them in place until inauguration.
Some are even permanent.
For example, we no longer recommend political groups to people. "
That promise is not new, however.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had already existed in January.
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