A bipartisan group of senators requested documents from Meta on Tuesday on its safety research and policies after several whistleblowers accused the company of stifling internal studies on safety risks.
In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and six others pressed the tech giant about the “disturbing” allegations.
“Despite repeated assurances from you and other Meta executives that your company has finally begun prioritizing children’s safety, these disclosures suggest that Meta executives instead have systemically covered up risks and blocked research, even as it worked to expand potentially unsafe products to young teens and children,” the senators wrote.
Six current and former Meta employees have accused the company of doctoring and restricting internal research into safety concerns, particularly regarding young users on its virtual and augmented reality platforms.
They allege that Meta began limiting safety research to establish plausible deniability after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen disclosed a trove of documents in 2021, including internal research indicating the company was aware of its platforms’ negative mental health effects on teenage girls.
“Meta appears to have walked away from—and even obstructed—research into and remedies for the toxic impacts of its products, while misrepresenting the effectiveness of its efforts and lobbying against legislation that would legally require such precautions,” the senators added in Tuesday’s letter.
They have asked Meta to provide any internal research into the prevalence of harms to young users on its platforms, the existence of users younger than 13 and the use and effectiveness of parental controls.
The senators are also seeking information on the company’s policies and procedures used to review research proposals, in addition to any research applications related to young users and whether they were rejected or altered.
Meta has dismissed the whistleblower allegations as “nonsense,” arguing the claims are based on “selectively leaked internal documents” meant to “craft a false narrative” and emphasizing there was not a “blanket prohibition on conducting research with young people.”
