Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) is contesting the findings of a damning expose on the toxic culture surrounding Instagram. The company's attempts come in the days before executives are expected to appear before lawmakers to address the contents of said report.
From limp responses to the abuse of the company's flagship platform by human traffickers to co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's apparent inability to control his own platform, the Wall Street Journal's "Facebook Files" paints a dismal picture of the inner workings of the social media giant's content moderation practices.
The toxic culture surrounding Instagram and the profoundly adverse effects on the mental health of younger users is at the forefront of the controversy surrounding the expose. According to Facebook's own research (as revealed in the report), Instagram made "body image issues worse for one in three teen girls," as well as leaving young users with anxiety and depression. The implications of Facebook's apparent knowledge and failure to act became the driving force behind the company's forthcoming appearance before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee.
Facebook, however, has attempted to rebuff the findings of the report by discrediting its research. Directly addressing the statistic of one in three girls developing body image issues, Facebook Vice President and Head of Research Pratiti Raychoudhury commented, "Body image was the only area where teen girls who reported struggling with the issue said Instagram made it worse as compared to the other 11 areas."
Without any hard data to back up its refuting claims, however, it is unlikely that Facebook will sway critics, much less any members of the Senate. Like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), the firm faces a PR crisis due to successive negative headlines and a seeming inability or unwillingness to address it adequately. Given that the social media giant is already under a litany of scrutiny before the release of the "Facebook Files" and rapidly growing distrust among consumers and regulators, the firm likely has a very tumultuous future ahead of it.