Arturo Béjar, a former consultant on Instagram's wellbeing team, says personal experiences with his teenage daughter prompted him to warn Mark Zuckerberg about safety failures on the platform before becoming a whistleblower.
Key facts
- Arturo Béjar worked as a consultant on the wellbeing team of Instagram, owned by Facebook (Meta).
- On 5 October 2021, Béjar emailed Zuckerberg and senior executives about a 'critical gap' in how the company approached harm.
- His team's survey found 24.4% of 13-15-year-olds on Instagram said they had received unwanted advances.
- The same survey found 21.8% of that age group said they had been bullied, and 51% of users reported a bad or harmful experience, both in the past seven days.
- Béjar's daughter was 14 when she told him Instagram was failing to keep her safe.
Arturo Béjar, a former consultant on the wellbeing team of Instagram, has explained why he chose to speak out about teen safety failures at the platform’s parent company, telling the Guardian that personal experience drove his decision. Béjar’s daughter was 14 when she told him Instagram was failing to keep her safe, an account that shaped his view of the company’s approach to harm.
According to the Guardian, Béjar sent a long-gestating email to Mark Zuckerberg and other senior Facebook executives on 5 October 2021. In it, he wrote that he wanted to bring to their attention what he believed was ‘a critical gap in how we as a company approach harm, and how the people we serve experience it.’
The email laid out statistics drawn from his team’s survey. The Guardian reports that 24.4% of 13-to-15-year-olds on Instagram said they had received unwanted advances, and 21.8% said they had been the target of bullying on the platform in the past seven days. In addition, 51% of Instagram users said they had had a bad or harmful experience in the past seven days.
The timing of Béjar’s email was notable. He hit send on the same day, 5 October 2021, that Frances Haugen testified to the US Senate. Haugen, a former employee, had in 2021 leaked internal documents that appeared to show Facebook was aware of the harms its products had inflicted, according to the Guardian.
The Guardian reports that Béjar’s testimony cost the company billions. In the interview, he reflected on the company’s leadership, saying, ‘I don’t recall Mark ever being empathetic.’
Béjar’s account surfaces again as ‘The Social Reckoning,’ a film directed by Aaron Sorkin and a follow-up to ‘The Social Network,’ reaches cinemas. The Guardian notes the film details further events involving Zuckerberg’s social media empire and climaxes with Haugen’s Senate testimony.
Why it matters
Béjar's account offers an insider perspective on how one of the world's largest social media companies handled warnings about teen safety. For parents and young users, the survey figures he cited raise questions about the scale of harmful experiences reported on the platform.
Frequently asked questions
What did Arturo Béjar do at Meta?
According to the Guardian, Béjar worked as a consultant on the wellbeing team of Instagram, which is owned by Facebook (Meta).
What statistics did Béjar raise with Zuckerberg?
His team's survey found 24.4% of 13-to-15-year-olds said they had received unwanted advances and 21.8% said they had been bullied in the past seven days, while 51% of users reported a bad or harmful experience in that period.
When did Béjar email Zuckerberg?
He sent the email on 5 October 2021, the same day former employee Frances Haugen testified to the US Senate.