Big Tech companies were in the crosshairs again on Wednesday, as a handful of executives asked scathing questions at a Senate hearing about the impact of their products on children.
Facing the Senate Judiciary Committee, the CEOs of Meta Platforms Inc. META,
TikTok, Discord, Snap Inc. snap,
And X — Mark Zuckerberg, Xu Ziqiu, Jason Citron, Evan Spiegel, and Linda Yaccarino, respectively — testified.
“The dispute has been used to groom, kidnap and abuse children. Meta's Instagram helped communicate and promote a network of pedophiles. “Disappearing Snapchat messages have been co-opted by criminals who financially extort young victims,” Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and chairman of the committee, said in a scathing opening statement. “TikTok has become a ‘platform of choice’ for predators to reach out to children, engage them, prepare them for abuse, and spread sexual harassment.” [child sexual abuse material] on X has grown as the company has destroyed trust and its safety workforce.
Durbin, who noted that companies implemented several technology workarounds in the days leading up to Wednesday's hearing, confronted the executives about the harmful effects of their platforms.
A handful of senators — led by Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — have threatened to make social media companies vulnerable to legal action from victims, so they can be sued for damages in court.
Several victims and their families are featured in a short video and the blame is placed squarely on tech companies. The audience was filled with families and parents whose children had died due to bullying and drug sales on social media platforms, and hundreds of them sent a letter pressuring Congress to act urgently.
In 2013, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received approximately 1,380 online tips of child sexual abuse material per day. By 2023, the number was 100,000 reports per day.
“Big Tech executives have been making the same empty promises for years as children suffer horrific harms online,” the senators said in a joint statement. “In the absence of real, enforceable reforms, social media companies will only continue to publicly pretend to care about youth safety while privately prioritizing profits.”
At one point, when pressed by Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, Zuckerberg turned around and apologized to the victims' families.
“I'm sorry for everything you went through. No one should have to go through the things your families went through,” Zuckerberg said, adding that Meta is working on ways to better protect children.
Several bills are circulating in Congress to address this issue. The Children's Online Safety Act, co-authored by Senators Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, aims to provide children and parents with better tools to protect themselves online and hold big tech companies accountable for harm and abuse. Providing transparency in black box algorithms. The bill has the support of nearly half of the US Senate.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, do you believe you have the constitutional right to lie to Congress? I don't think so,” Blumenthal said at one point.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., referred to the CEO's lack of support for any child safety bills as “deafening silence.”
The frustration of Coons and others highlights years in which there was no substantive legislation protecting Americans from harm caused by digital platforms, amid divisions in Congress and resistance from technology companies. The last major law was the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998.
In a series of opening statements, the tech CEOs outlined the steps they are taking to protect children and pledged to work with lawmakers. Zuckerberg testified that Meta has built more than 30 tools, resources and features to help protect teens and give parents oversight and control over how their children use the company's services, as well as providing special protection for teen accounts.
Zuckerberg even suggested that Apple Inc.'s app stores AAPL,
And Google's parent company, Google.
Google,
Should Alphabet Inc. Make it difficult for young people to download potentially harmful applications, leaving the decision up to their parents.
In her response, Yaccarino said that the platform was previously known as Twitter Not the preferred platform for children and minors. Users between the ages of 13 and 17 represent less than 1% of daily users in the U.S., she said, adding: “We have made it difficult for bad actors to share or interact with the personalized search engine.” [child sexual exploitation] materials on X, while at the same time making it easier for our users to report CSE content.”
TikTok is “continuously working to provide a safe app experience for our community, and we aim to be a leader in this space,” Chiu said. “But we realize that technology is constantly evolving and that we need to be prepared to face unexpected trends and challenges as they arise,” he added.
