Instagram's effect on teens under scrutiny in U.S. committee

Political adversaries in U.S. Congress are united in outrage against Facebook for privately compiling information that its Instagram photo-sharing service appears to grievously harm some teens, especially girls, while publicly downplaying the popular platform's negative impact.

Mounting public pressure over the revelations have prompted Facebook to put on hold its work on a kids' version of Instagram, which the company says is meant mainly for tweens aged 10 to 12. But it's just a pause.

For some of the Instagram-devoted teens, the peer pressure generated by the visually focused app led to mental-health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts. It was Facebook's own researchers who alerted the social network giant's executives to Instagram's destructive potential.

Those revelations in a report by The Wall Street Journal, based on internal research leaked by a whistleblower at Facebook, have set off a wave of anger from lawmakers, critics of Big Tech, child-development experts and parents.

Facebook's head of global safety, Antigone Davis, has been summoned to testify Thursday by a Senate Commerce Committee panel digging into Instagram's impact on young users.