Several US lawmakers on Wednesday grilled heads of the biggest social media companies including Meta, accusing these platforms of prioritising profits and neglecting safety measures to protect children.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, referring to Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “You have a product that’s killing people.” Zuckerberg testified along with X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap, CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
Senator Dick Durbin, the Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chairman, cited statistics from a nonprofit group that showed skyrocketing growth in financial “sextortion,” in which a predator tricks a minor into sending explicit photos and videos. “This disturbing growth in child sexual exploitation is driven by one thing: changes in technology,” Durbin said during the hearing.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced tough questions at a US Senate hearing on his efforts to combat online child sexual exploitation as Senator Lindsey Graham told the chief executive of the social media company that he has ‘blood on his hands’ https://t.co/awDTztj6Pl pic.twitter.com/boBBcPCRAL— Reuters (@Reuters) January 31, 2024
‘Apologise to them directly’
As the hearing kicked off, the committee played a video in which children spoke about being victimised on social media. “I was sexually exploited on Facebook,” said one child in the video, who appeared in shadow. In the hearing room, dozens of parents held pictures of their children who they said had been harmed due to social media.
During the hearing, Senator Josh Hawley challenged Zuckerberg to apologise to them directly, and several people held the children’s photos aloft again as Zuckerberg turned around to address them. Zuckerberg expressed regret about what they had experienced and pledged to work to prevent it from happening to others, but stopped short of taking responsibility for facilitating the abuse, as Hawley suggested he should.
An apology from Mark Zuckerberg to America – long, long overdue pic.twitter.com/PW94qb1RK6— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 31, 2024
STOP CSAM Act
In a tense exchange, the committee displayed copies of internal emails showing Zuckerberg rejecting a request by Meta’s top policy executive to hire between 45 and 84 engineers to work on safety improvements. X’s Yaccarino said the company supported the STOP CSAM Act, legislation introduced by Durbin that seeks to hold tech companies accountable for child sexual abuse material and would allow victims to sue tech platforms and app stores. The bill is one of several aimed at addressing child safety.
X, formerly Twitter, has come under some criticism since Elon Musk bought the service and loosened moderation policies. Earlier this week, it blocked searches for pop singer Taylor Swift after fake sexually explicit images of her spread on the platform. The latest hearing also marked the first appearance by TikTok CEO Chew before US lawmakers since March, when the Chinese-owned short video app company faced harsh questions, including some suggesting the app was damaging children’s mental health.
Chew disclosed more than 170 million Americans used TikTok monthly, 20 million more than the company said last year. Under questioning by Graham, he said TikTok would spend more than USD 2 billion on trust and safety efforts. Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, pressed Zuckerberg about warning screens on Instagram that alerted users an image might show child sexual abuse, but still allowed them to see the image. “Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?” Cruz said.
(With agency inputs)
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