Design It For Us Statement on Congressional Letter to Urge Instagram to Abandon “Friend Map” Feature

Design It For Us Co-chair Zamaan Qureshi issued the following statement on Reps. Castor and Trahan’s letter to Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri to express deep concerns with the social media platform’s development and future launch of the “Friend Map” feature:

“My generation has yet to see any meaningful and long-term implementation of safeguards on Meta’s Instagram and is reeling from the harms driven by Meta’s failure to act. Meta’s new Friend Map feature would not just enable but incentivize unrelenting data collection of its youngest users that would ramp up the prevalence of risky or unsafe environments and fuel our exploitation. The feature would also perpetuate social isolation as research suggests location-based apps can be detrimental to teens’ mental health. I’m grateful that our coalition has the opportunity to work with Representatives Castor and Trahan to demand accountability from Meta for continuing to innovate against our well-being.”

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