Facebook's Instagram chief uses awkward comparison with cars to defend social media harms - CNBC

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Adam Mosseri, Facebook

Beck Diefenbach | Reuters

Adam Mosseri, the head of Facebook’s Instagram service, came under a flurry of criticism on Thursday after comparing the value of social networks to society to that of cars.

“We know that more people die than would otherwise because of car accidents, but by and large, cars create way more value in the world than they destroy,” Mosseri said on the Recode Media podcast on Wednesday. “And I think social media is similar.”

The comments come after a series of reports by the Wall Street Journal this week based on internal Facebook files. A Tuesday report from the series revealed that Facebook has repeatedly found that its Instagram app is harmful to a number of teenagers. Among the findings was an internal presentation that said 32% of teen girls said Instagram made them feel even worse when they were feeling bad about their bodies.

Following the report, U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle demanded answers from Facebook about how its services impact the mental health of teens and children, with some calling on the company to abandon its plans to launch a kids version of Instagram.

Mosseri’s comparison of Instagram to cars came after podcast host Peter Kafka asked the executive if the service should be pulled or restricted if there’s a chance it could really harm people in the same way that cigarettes can harm people.

“Absolutely not, and I really don’t agree with the comparison to drugs or...



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