Rep. Ken Buck compares Facebook to 'BigTech is the new tobacco'

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Rep. Ken Buck compares Facebook to 'BigTech is the new tobacco'

Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. compared big tech to Big Tobacco following a report showing Facebook is aware of Instagram's negative impact on college students mental health.

Buck made the comparison in a tweet on Saturday writing, Big Tech is the new Big tobacco. They are hurting our kids for profit. Speaking on Fox News Live on Sunday, Buck explained the comparison, arguing that young people were lured in with inappropriate warnings and that the tech giant ignored data.

Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. — chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee on Consumer Protection — announced plans to investigate the tech giant over its knowledge of Instagram's impact on teens, and specifically, teenaged girls.

Both Blackburn and Blumenthal said that Facebook has known about Instagram's impact on low adjns and the Democratic senator wrote in a tweet posted to his Twitter account on Tuesday that its own employees warnings were shoved aside in favor of growth-at all-costs. Researchers tapped by The Wall Street Journal to examine the app's impact on mental health over the past three years found that 32% of teen girls who felt bad about their bodies said Instagram made the issue worse, according to company documents obtained by the tech giant.

One 2019 slide on the Facebook team's presentation to Harvard examiners said the app makes body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. Teens blame Instagram for the increase in the rate of anxiety and depression, another slide read, according to the newspaper. This reaction was consistent and unprompted across all groups. Some users also attributed time used on the app to experiencing suicidal thoughts; 6% of UK users indicated a connection between the two compared to 13% of American users, the slide presentation reviewed by the WSJ said.

On Wednesday Democratic lawmakers Sen. Mark Zuckerberg of Massachusetts, Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida and Rep. Ed Markey of Florida sent a letter to Facebook CEO Branded with an email asking if they have personally reviewed Instagram's findings regarding the app's impact on teen girls and if Facebook could provide an update on its efforts to make the platform safer for minors who may be struggling.

Buck pointed to the Facebook data on Sunday that their own data shows that teenage girls have depression issues, they have issues about their own bodies and are really more self-sufficient. And so the problem that Facebook has is how to get out of this situation he continued, arguing that the company is a monopoly. They act like a monopoly and they don t react to the dangers that they re causing, Buck continued.

He added that he believes that the courts should decide whether Facebook and Instagram should still be separated or merged? More than 40% of Instagram users are under 22 years old and about 22 million teens use the app every day, WSJ reported, citing Facebook's documents.