In the settlement reached in August in the historic case filed in the USA, it was agreed that the Meta company would pay 18 billion dollars and impose some restrictions for children. Reacting to this decision, Meta's former engineering director, Arturo Béjar, spoke to CNN Turk's Serdar Korucu and said, "I am one of many former employees who publicly disclosed that they were aware of the damages caused by the company, disclosed and spoke about it. I can tell you this clearly. They act as if the world cannot hold them accountable," he said.
Béjar said that the reason why she testified against her former company in the case was because of her daughter's experiences: "When my daughter was 12, she started saying she wanted to join Instagram. I waited until she was 14; a few weeks after she joined Instagram, while we were talking at dinner, she told me that she was receiving unwanted sexual messages from strangers. These people had asked for her intimate photos. And there was no mechanism in the system to report this. She stated that all she could do was block them. I asked her if her friends were experiencing similar things; it turns out that all her friends were experiencing the same things. "It was at that moment that I realized that the most sacred responsibility a company has, my responsibility to protect children, was being ignored by the company. And this put me on the path I am on now."
Stating that they measured the harms faced by children and young people in the research he conducted at Meta company, Arturo Béjar said that 1 in every 5 children encountered unwanted sexual content and 1 in every 8 children were sexually harassed. "Moreover, these are children aged 13-15," he said. Béjar said that at first he thought, "Mark Zuckerberg does not know about this, because if he had known about it, he would have done something about it." "I shared the number of abuses and stated that the company's approach to the issue would not solve the problem and that its leadership was needed to implement the changes that I knew the company could make to protect children from all these harms."
Stating that the Meta company has known about the harm to children for years, Meta's former engineering director, Arturo Béjar, stated that many studies have revealed this fact: "Your children's access to virtual media unfortunately increases the likelihood that they will come into contact with strangers and that these strangers will direct them to harmful content. This is the design logic of Instagram. And they will not change this. That is why the world needs to intervene; because security is a secondary issue for them. This is a company that is based on making money in every aspect. When I was there, it had 5 thousand engineers." There were only about 20 engineers in Instagram's security team, working on all these issues. The only purpose of this company is to keep your attention as long as possible and to create a structure that will make as much profit as possible. And if it causes damage, they do not take responsibility for it. They are fighting against the whole world on this issue, just like in the lawsuits. And this shows what kind of company they are. a company.”
Stating that it is still not possible for a child to report unwanted sexual messages on Instagram, Béjar said, "However, it will only take 1 or 2 months for them to develop this. It is extremely easy for them to do this. If Mark Zuckerberg woke up tomorrow and said, 'I want to significantly reduce the harm that young people are exposed to on the platform,' we would be living in a completely different world in 3 to 6 months. Still, he continues to refuse to do this."
Stating that the settlement in the historical case in the USA is a positive step in terms of reducing the time spent, Arturo Béjar underlined that the structural problems of the virtual media platform continue: "Instagram is based on three basic elements. First, the infinite scroll feature, capturing your attention as much as possible through notifications and videos and continuing to hold it... This feature does not change. Second, it connects your children with strangers... Messages and contents from strangers. Problems with body image. All the scary things you encounter on the platform. All of them are in your child's person's face." "The third thing is that it encourages children to do things that could harm themselves, like taking off their clothes, doing something violent, or participating in dangerous challenges like driving against traffic. Unless all of this changes, we will continue to see the problems we have seen."
Emphasizing that the problem in virtual media is the content that children encounter due to the algorithm, Béjar said, "Companies knowingly put children at risk" and stated that sanctions should be imposed on the platforms: "I am of the following opinion: If the platforms in virtual media do not solve these problems, they should not be accessible to young children, they should be closed. Today, platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat are designed to force children to interact with strangers. I think this is exactly what needs to change radically. Companies have stated that they want to create a safe environment. Until they actually do this, children should be closed." “I think he should not have access to these platforms.”
