Dear Mr. Zuckerberg

[PSPS]

September 15, 2021

Mark Zuckerberg
Chief Executive Officer
Facebook, Inc.
1601 Willow Road
Menlo Park, CA 94025

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:

We write regarding reports that Facebook has conducted and reviewed research showing that
Instagram, the photo-sharing social media app that Facebook owns, is harmful to young people.
This new information is particularly concerning given your company’s recent announcement that
it is “exploring” plans to launch a new version of Instagram for users under the age of 13.(1) In
light of this new evidence, we strongly urge you to cease all efforts to launch any new platforms
for children or teens.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Facebook has conducted empirical research
pointing to a connection between Instagram use and mental health problems among young users.
Although you have publicly told Congress that “the research [I have] seen is that using social
apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits,” your own
company’s research points to disturbing relationships between Instagram use and young people’s
mental health challenges.(2) For example, according to internal Facebook documents obtained and
published by the Wall Street Journal, your own research produced the following findings:

• six percent of U.S. teen users who have reported experiencing suicidal thoughts connect
their inclination to end their lives to Instagram;
• Instagram exacerbates body image problems for one in three teen girls;
• young Instagram users feel social pressure to spend time on the app, even though they
know it poses risks to their mental health;
• one in five teens reports that Instagram makes them feel worse about themselves; and
• many teens who battle mental health problems report that using Instagram makes them
feel worse, highlighting “pressure to match the money and body shapes of influencers,”
over-sexualization of girls,” and “inappropriate advertisements targeted to vulnerable
groups,” among the top ways the platform harms their mental health.(3)

Children and teens are uniquely vulnerable populations online, and these findings paint a clear
and devastating picture of Instagram as an app that poses significant threats to young people’s
wellbeing. As the internet—and social media specifically—becomes increasingly engrained in
children and teens’ lives, we are deeply concerned that your company continues to fail in its
obligation to protect young users and has yet to commit to halt its plans to launch new platforms
targeting children and teens. The recently uncovered evidence published in the Wall Street
Journal underscores Facebook’s responsibility to fundamentally change its approach to engaging
with children and teens online. That starts with Facebook abandoning its plans to launch a new
version of Instagram for kids.

Please provide responses to the following questions and requests for information by October 6,
2021:

1. Have you personally reviewed the aforementioned research regarding your young users’
mental health? If yes, when did you do so? If not, why not, and who among Facebook’s
senior personnel has reviewed this research?

2. Please provide a detailed update on Facebook’s current plans for any new products or
services targeting children or teens?

3. Will Facebook agree to abandon its plans to launch any new platforms for children or
teens, including a version of Instagram for children? If not, why not?

4. When did Facebook begin studying its platforms’ impacts on teens’ mental health?

5. Please provide copies of all internal research Facebook has conducted regarding the
mental health of your children and teen users.

6. Please provide copies of all external research Facebook has commissioned or otherwise
accessed regarding the mental health of your children and teen users.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,
Edward J. Markey Kathy Castor Lori Trahan
United States Senator Member of Congress Member of Congress


(1) Ryan Mac & Craig Silverman, Facebook Is Building An Instagram For Kids Under The Age Of 13, Buzzfeed
News (Mar. 18, 2021), https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-instagram-for-children-
under13?mkt_tok=ODUwLVRBQS01MTEAAAF76Wa7gepI39A5wVlUsYMz6f2GDv9g1rWiYmtOIC3NziizWuT
zJCaI shU83fHU8tAl9vVmx76IsbdGFY1iCyJpXpjzYB92I0S_GJGy5tDrIhYb.

(2) Georgia Wells, Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman, Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls,
Company Documents Show, Wall St. J. (Sept. 14, 2021), https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-
is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739.

(3) Id.

[PortTack]

1. He and his f..kbook enterprise are a big part of this country's problems!

[Ron Obvious]

2. I know two families in my circle with teenage daughters in critical condition b/c eating disorders

I blame social media and "influencers"

I can barely imagine what it would be like being a teenager these days with all the social media.

[blueinredohio]

3. I don't know if my 14 year old granddaughter has an eating disorder but she's very thin.

She also has been hospitalized twice this year for being suicidal. I blame social media for most of this.

[Sympthsical]

4. There have been a lot of studies in this vein

I fully intend my master's in psychology to be geared toward the effects of social media on the social, emotional, and cognitive behaviors of people. Just finished reading Nicolas Carr's The Shallows. Fantastic book I highly recommend to anyone interested on the topic. It's ten years old though, and there have been a lot of studies about this stuff since then.

Social media are terrible for children. Particularly adolescents who are forming the skills needed to maneuver socially and cope emotionally. Social media are fucking them up. Depression rates are up, up, up.

Adults aren't faring too much better. The inability to pay attention and process information long term withers away the more one engages with social media. When you're constantly distracted, perusing a dozen things, and getting alerts all the time, none of what you're doing is going usefully into your deep memory banks. The parts of our brain that think comprehensively are not engaged. Everything becomes surface, scattered, and disposable.

We see it all the time, even here. People responding to headlines. People reading articles and having no idea what it actually said by the time they get to their reply. This just happened to me a bit ago. Was about two pages into an article for a class, and a work text dinged. I could've finished my reading, but no. Picked up the phone. Ten minutes later, after five other things, I returned to the article. Newp, had to start over. Had no idea what was going on.

We do this all the time now, and it's mushing our brains.

[Comfortably_Numb]

5. FFS when is enough enough with this toxic platform and it's wanton destruction???

Jeebus…. FB needs to be held to account. If it can’t be done with current law then find a way… shit. Their model is exploitation for as revenue so they’re sure as hell not going to change it without pressure.

[BigmanPigman]

6. I have been saying this for a looooong time.

I never used Fakebook or Instagram and never will. Fuckerberg only cares about himself and money. Greedy bastard.

[Blue Owl]

7. Gangstagram

And not the good kind of gangsta...

[Hekate]

8. KnR