Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at Capitol Hill, a new report suggests Instagram negatively impacts the mental health of young people, and YouTube gets hacked.
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Mark Zuckerberg is in the hot seat. Facebook and its CEO are facing tough questions after it was revealed that research firm Cambridge Analytica improperly gained access to the personal data of as many as 87 million Facebook users. The company has said it first learned of the leak in 2015 and demanded the research firm to delete the data then. Zuckerberg told senators on Capitol Hill that it was a mistake to trust Cambridge had done so. Senators grilled the CEO about Facebook’s terms of service, and suggested the terms be made clearer so users understand them more clearly. Zuckerberg is also scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later today.
Reddit is buzzing over a new report that suggests Instagram is the worst social media site when it comes to the impact it has on young people’s mental health. The #StatusofMind survey found the photo-sharing app negatively impacted people’s body image, sleep and contributed to a fear of missing out. Interestingly enough, however, the survey of nearly 1,500 youth aged 14 to 24, found Instagram was positive in terms of self-expression and self-identity. The site with the most positive rating was YouTube, followed by Twitter. Facebook and Snapchat came third and fourth respectively.
Twitter is reeling from the recent hack that impacted a number of popular artists on YouTube such as Drake, Shakira and Luis Fonsi, who’s recent music video Despacito has reached more than 5 billion views. A group of hackers broke into “Despacito” video Monday and defaced the clip’s cover image with a picture of masked people pointing guns, resulting in the most-viewed music video of all time being taken down temporarily. Since then, YouTube has reposted the video, and its partner VEVO confirmed the hack in a statement and said they are continuing to investigate the breach. One of the apparent hackers trolled VEVO on Twitter shortly afterwards, saying it was “fun” hacking the site, and that they could have deleted all the videos.
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