Bipartisan Coalition of State AGs Are Investigating Instagram, Including RI’s Neronha

Bipartisan Coalition of State AGs Are Investigating Instagram, Including RI’s Neronha

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general said late last week it is investigating how Instagram attracts and affects young people.

Instagram is owned by Meta — formerly named Facebook.

Led by eight states, including Massachusetts and Nebraska, the coalition is focused on “the techniques utilized by Meta to increase the frequency and duration of engagement by young users and the resulting harms caused by such extended engagement.”

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RI’s Attorney General Peter Nernoha’s office has confirmed that his office has signed on to the multi-state initiative.

Attorney General Neronha joined a nationwide investigation into Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, for providing and promoting its social media platform – Instagram – to children and young adults despite knowing that such use is associated with physical and mental health harms. Attorneys General across the country are examining whether the company violated state consumer protection laws and put the public at risk,” said Kristy dosReis, communications director for Neronha.

“When social media platforms treat our children as mere commodities to manipulate for longer screen time engagement and data extraction, it becomes imperative for state attorneys general to engage our investigative authority under our consumer protection laws,” said Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, a Republican.

In September, the Wall Street Journal reported, "...researchers inside Instagram, which is owned by Facebook Inc., were studying this kind of experience and asking whether it was part of a broader phenomenon. Their findings confirmed some serious problems."

“'Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,' the researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook’s internal message board, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. 'Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves,'” according to the WSJ.

"For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how its photo-sharing app affects its millions of young users. Repeatedly, the company’s researchers found that Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of them, most notably teenage girls. 'We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,' said one slide from 2019, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues," added WSJ.