US lawmakers rebuff Instagram boss’s self-regulation pitch

Washington: Instagram’s boss aimed to appease fuming US lawmakers on Thursday with a rosy view of the photo-sharing app’s impact on teens, but they rejected his self-regulation proposal and signalled a rekindled push to clamp down on Big Tech.

Adam Mosseri argued the service could help struggling young people, despite documents leaked by a company insider raising worries of harms, including a 2019 study saying Instagram made one in three teenage girls feel worse when they were unhappy with their bodies.

"Sometimes young people can come to Instagram, dealing with difficult things in their lives. I believe that Instagram can help in those critical moments," Mosseri told a Senate commerce subcommittee, at the latest hearing probing how social media could be hurting teens.