The Facebook Files - Fine Point Communications

I’m thinking a lot these days about Jeffrey Wigand.

Wigand is the man who revealed in the mid-1990s that the tobacco industry knew its products, when used as intended, harmed public health. What’s more, the industry had gimmicked their cigarettes to make them more addictive and, thereby, harder for smokers to quit.

How did Wigand know this? Because he was head of R&D at one of the largest tobacco companies. He had personally led the research, and he had briefed his company’s leadership on the findings. But when they failed to act, he couldn’t do the same.

Wigand’s whistleblowing started a chain of dominoes that led to FDA regulation of and new constraints on Big Tobacco, along with a firm societal shift that pushed smoking out of the American workplace and retail businesses.

What difference did it make? Consider that, in 1996, U.S. smokers under the age of 18 illegally consumed 1 billion packs of cigarettes, bringing in more than $200 million a year in sales. After Wigand, underage smoking dropped by nearly half over 10 years, and universities rushed to ban smoking from their campuses.

What Facebook knew

Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran a series titled “The Facebook Files.” One of its takeaways was that, just like Big Tobacco, Facebook knew through research that its products harm its customers, even when used as intended, and are addictive and difficult to quit. (One day’s report was headlined, “Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show.”)

Rather than act to minimize the human damage, though, Facebook chose repeatedly to continue raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. For example:

Facebook not only knew that Instagram harms teenagers’ mental health, it knew that kids recognized it, too. (“Young people are acutely aware that Instagram can be bad for their mental health, yet are compelled to spend time on the app for fear of missing out.”)
Facebook also knew that teenagers lacked the self control to spend less time on Instagram, even when they wanted to. (“They often feel ‘addicted’ and know that what they’re seeing is bad for their mental health but feel unable to stop themselves.”)
Facebook knew that 1 in 8 British teenagers who reported suicidal thoughts and 1 in 16 American teenagers traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram. (“Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. … This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”)
Facebook knew that Instagram not only informs but also defines how girls and young women view and describe themselves. (“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. … Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.”)

The problem for Facebook, as the Journal notes, is that in 2016 it had made a priority of winning over teenage users, and Instagram was key to its strategy.

A safer approach might cost the company some of Instagram’s audience and, thus, advertising dollars. As one former researcher told the Journal, “We’re standing directly between people and their bonuses.”

After the whistle blows

With all this information being publicized, surely Facebook’s leaders will now commit to making a safer Instagram, right? Um.

Facebook spokesman Nick Clegg released a statement on a Saturday to rebut the Journal series. It talked a lot about research but somehow failed to mention safety in any way.

And Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told the Journal that “he doesn’t think there are clear-cut solutions to fixing Instagram.” Rather, he is “cautiously optimistic” that the service may eventually, one day, be able to identify people who are in trouble and “to try to ‘nudge’ them toward more positive content.”

In other words, Instagram’s safety plan for customers is to rely on artificial intelligence for half-measures.

This wasn’t a one-time slip by Mosseri: After the Journal’s report, he was asked on the Recode Media podcast whether social media should be regulated in the interest of public safety. He replied, in effect, that social media is like the auto industry: Yes, people die because cars and social networks exist, but … get over it. “By and large, cars create way more value in the world than they destroy,” Mosseri said. “And I think social media is similar.”

The message from Facebook is clear: Caveat emptor. We are on our own. And this realization is what led me to thinking about Jeffrey Wigand.

What will schools now do?

Wigand’s revelations dispelled any illusion that responsible corporate leaders would act to protect our children. In their place, elected officials and educational leaders had to step up and act.

After the Facebook Files, the same thing is clear again, 25 years later. It is now plain that the social media industry is an inherent danger to young people, one that the industry’s leaders see as less urgent than “creating value.”

With this fresh knowledge, will schools act in the interest of students? Will they share this new information, urging students away from social media in assemblies, presentations and policies? And, importantly, will they follow their own advice and pull the plug on their institutional accounts?

Or will schools continue to look the other way when it comes to social media?

It’s not as if schools didn’t know before last week about the toll of life online: Behavioral issues involving online accounts are common, with some postings even resulting in expulsion; cultural microaggressions built into many networks (the tendency of Instagram photo filters, for instance, to whiten and thin faces) undermine self-esteem; and the linkage between social media usage with declining mental health and personal relationships has been strongly suspected by school counselors and administrators alike.

Academics say that it is better to engage with students about and within this part of their world than to fight or ignore it, given that youth devote nearly as much of their lives to consuming information online as they do to sleeping.

Some independent schools have tried to embrace the best of social media and reject the worst, bringing in consultants such as the Social Institute for student presentations that encourage this approach. Others have created a code of conduct, not unlike a dress code, that defines what is unacceptable and leaves the rest to student (and parent) discretion.

Meanwhile, schools have invested heavily in their social media channels over the past five years, both for student recruitment and for student retention. Many independent schools have Instagram audiences in the thousands — audiences that rely heavily on student subscriptions and engagement — and some have hired social media specialists to attract more followers and develop material explicitly for this audience.

Walking away from this investment would be extraordinarily difficult, as would staying out of conversations online and turning away from the promotional opportunities.

At the same time, now that Facebook’s own documents have revealed the clear and present danger facing young people, how can responsible schools, which have done so much over the past year to protect student safety, do nothing?

Don’t-miss clicks

The first draft of this newsletter centered on “Mr. Weber’s Confession,” the startling (and long) essay from Vanity Fair’s Nancy Jo Sales about a sexual misconduct investigation at Phillips Exeter Academy. (While the Journal’s expose bumped this piece, I may come back to it in a future Refill.) Sales shines a light on how such investigations proceed from the perspective of an alleged victim and the alleged perpetrator. I learned a lot.
Mills College has officially merged with Northeastern University, the end of the road for this pioneer in women’s education after years of financial troubles. Founded in 1852 in Oakland, Calif., Mills became in 2014 the first single-sex college in the country to stake out an official policy regarding the admission of transgender students; Scripps and Mount Holyoke would soon follow suit.
A new Gallup poll finds that “The Great Resignation” of workers has little to do with workload or whether one works from home or at an office. Rather, the driving issue is whether people feel engaged in their work, according to Axios. A related McKinsey study has similar findings: Employees leave because they feel disconnected, that they don’t belong in the organization.