Adam Mosseri was well prepared. The head of Instagram appeared for the first time on Wednesday for an official hearing before members of Congress on the harmful effects of Instagram on children and adolescents.
Mosseri avoided critical questions or answered them with rehearsed, daring answers. He also referred to a new announcement by Instagram to better protect young people in the future.
A function is to be introduced by March 2022 with which parents can limit the time their children can use. In addition, young people should be able to switch on reminders to take a break in the future.
However, this did not seem to be enough for the MPs at the hearing. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said at the opening of the hearing that Instagram’s self-imposed rules to protect children were inadequate and would come years too late. «The time of self-regulation by social networks is over. The trust is gone », criticized Blumenthal.
In fact, there seems to be a consensus among American politicians that children should be better protected in the digital space.
Members of the House of Representatives introduced a proposal into the legislative process in September, the “Kids Internet Design and Safety Act”, which is intended to ban push messages and auto-play functions for children under 16, among other things.
Are social networks the cigarette of the 21st century? The US Congress wants to introduce similar laws for the protection of minors.
(Photo: dpa)
The proposal has prominent supporters from both Democrats and Republicans. Despite the current strong polarization of American politics, that could give him a majority. The tech companies are likely to lobby against the proposal.
But as the Democratic Senator Edward Markey told the Wall Street Journal: “Facebook can pay almost every lobbyist in Washington. But when it comes to protecting children and young people, his position is untenable. “
Tobacco Industry: In the beginning there was a ban on advertising for children
It would not be the first time politicians have started regulating an industry with the child’s welfare argument. In 1971 the American Parliament banned tobacco advertising on radio and television. Back then, cigarettes were the most heavily advertised product in the United States. Legislators wanted to prevent children from being influenced by it.
With moderate success. In 1991, nine out of ten six-year-olds recognized Joe Camel, the mascot of the cigarette manufacturer Camel. The smoking cartoon camel was about as well known to children as Mickey Mouse.
Camel advertised a smoking cartoon character for a long time. They had to abolish them because they were too attractive to children.
(Photo: AP)
Joe Camel was developed by the marketing team at parent company Reynolds Tobacco because those responsible believed the brand was positioned “too old”. The management therefore commissioned an advertising campaign that should be attractive to younger potential customers. As a result, Camel increased its market share among underage smokers from 1 percent to over 32 percent.
Meta-CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also bothered by the fact that young people are increasingly lingering on Tiktok instead of on his Facebook and Instagram platforms. The platform “Instagram for Kids” for users under the age of 13 should have reversed the trend. But the project was temporarily paused after great pressure from the public.
Crucial question about addiction
Now more and more American politicians are making the analogy between “Big Tobacco” and social media and are calling for the networks to be regulated. The American Addiction Center estimates that currently between 5 and 10 percent of all people in the United States have developed a dependency on social networks and thus suffer from mood swings and withdrawal symptoms when they cannot go online.
However, representatives of social networks such as Instagram boss Adam Mosseri repeatedly emphasize that their products are in no way deliberately developed in such a way that they are addictive. Exactly the same thing said the bosses of the tobacco companies about fifty years ago.
Until the early 1970s, smoking was considered a habit, not an addiction. When more and more studies showed nicotine addiction and documented the harmful effects of tobacco consumption, but there was still no scientific consensus on the dangers of smoking, the legislators first agreed on the protection of children. After all, children and adolescents are less able to control their impulses than adults, which makes them particularly susceptible to products that trigger an addiction.
Last Wednesday, the head of Instagram had to justify before the Congress that Instagram had a bad effect on children.
(Photo: dpa)
General restrictions on the tobacco business came around twenty years later: after a long legal dispute, the tobacco companies agreed to make a horrific compensation payment in 1998.
In a book on the tobacco industry, financial analyst Gene Hoots estimates that companies will have to pay the American states, their lawyers, tobacco growers and the FDA more than $ 1,700 billion by 2048.
Since then, they are no longer allowed to use cartoon characters in advertising or to advertise in public places. In addition, a law was introduced in 2009 that enables the authorities to control the nicotine content in tobacco products and to strengthen warnings on cigarette packets.
Right-free zone is regulated
Cigarettes are not social media feeds, and nicotine is not the same as virtual hearts. Matthias Kettemann, professor at the University of Innsbruck, nevertheless estimates it to be likely that the regulation of social networks will begin in the USA through the protection of minors.
Compared to tobacco, where the risk of addiction and thus the damage to health are direct and concrete, the risk in social networks is abstract. That should make regulation more difficult, says Kettemann.
Nonetheless, he believes that the internet will evolve from a largely unlawful area into a regulated zone in the coming years. “It is widely recognized that the states have so far done too little to provide positive incentives for Internet platforms,” says Kettemann.
With the impending regulation, the business model of Facebook, Instagram and Co. is coming under pressure, after all it is based on users spending as much time as possible on the platforms. But as the example of the tobacco industry shows, regulation does not necessarily have to damage companies immediately.
Although there have been fewer and fewer smokers for years, thanks to the ban on advertising for tobacco companies, hardly any new competitors have entered the market. A handful of companies now control an oligopoly in the tobacco business.
Even after deducting high taxes, they still have a high profit margin. Addicted customers keep buying cigarettes.
More: Mark Zuckerberg should testify about Instagram impact for children