Leaders of five social media platforms were reprimanded by US lawmakers on Wednesday for their “failure” to protect children from sexual predators and mental health problems online, and faced pressure to support new legislation imposing restrictions. Ta.
The 21-member Senate Judiciary Committee has summoned the CEOs of Metaplatform, X, Snap, Discord, and TikTok to Washington to hold them accountable for the impact their platforms have on teens and children. pursued.
advertisement
Continue reading below
“These companies have to be reined in, or the worst is yet to come,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the committee's top Republican. Graham singled out Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and recounted stories of children who were victims of sexual exploitation, saying he had “blood on his hands.” “The products you develop are killing people,” he added. His comments were met with thunderous applause and cheers from supporters attending the packed hearing.
Congress is under pressure to respond to the proliferation of child sexual abuse content online and mounting evidence that technology companies are incapable of protecting children from predators. They have also raised concerns about the impact social media use has on young people's mental health. Meta, which owns TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, is facing a lawsuit in California that alleges the companies were negligent and ignored the potential harm of the platforms they created for teenagers.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) convened the hearing to build momentum for the committee's bill targeting online child sexual exploitation.
“We stand ready to work with the members of this committee, industry and parents to make the internet safer for everyone,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m proud of the work our team is doing to improve online and child safety on our services and across the internet.”
But senators had little patience with Zuckerberg and his colleagues, saying their efforts were insufficient, some of which, as Durbin pointed out, were only recently introduced. I found out something.
“Discord has been used to groom, kidnap, and abuse children. Meta's Instagram helped connect and facilitate networks of pedophiles,” Durbin said. “Deleted Snapchat messages are being stolen by criminals who financially sextort young victims.”
“Their design choices, failure to properly invest in trust and safety, and constant pursuit of involvement and profit over basic safety are all putting our children and grandchildren at risk. ”
Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin attend a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 31st in Washington, DC.
Lawmakers have examined children's online safety in previous hearings, but Wednesday is when Congress will convene the executive branch to discuss the issue as part of a broader effort to move the bill forward. will be the first time.
President Joe Biden, tech industry whistleblowers, parents, and teens themselves have brought to Congress online evidence suggesting that social media use can worsen young people's mental health. He has repeatedly called for increased safety. However, the bill has stalled as technology and digital rights groups lobby against it, and many measures have been characterized as ineffective and dangerous to user privacy and safety. There is.
Mr. Durbin also accepted responsibility for Congress, which has repeatedly failed to enact regulations for social media companies over the years.
Meta has faced significant backlash over its child safety efforts, with Zuckerberg announcing on Wednesday that it would be adding parental controls to set time limits on the app, notifications to review privacy settings, and interactions with children. He explained the many tools that Meta is deploying to protect young people, including restrictions on: grown ups.
But senators weren't convinced, and during four hours of testimony they spent more time directly questioning Zuckerberg than their colleagues.
Josh Hawley of Missouri asked the Facebook co-founder if he would personally compensate victims of sexual exploitation on his site.
“You're a millionaire,” Hawley said. “Would you like to use your money to establish a victim compensation fund?”
In a particularly dramatic moment, Mr. Hawley asked Mr. Zuckerberg whether he had apologized to the victims and their families who have been exploited on his platform, including today's audience. At Mr. Hawley's prompting, the CEO stood up, turned around, and addressed the audience.
Mark Zuckerberg addresses the audience at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 31st in Washington, DC.
advertisement
Continue reading below
“I'm sorry for everything you've been through,” Zuckerberg said. “It's terrible. No one should have to go through what your family went through. This is why we're investing so much, we don't have to go through what your family is going through.” We will continue our industry-leading efforts to ensure that no one has to go through what their families have had to go through.”
Mr. Zuckerberg also denied a request from top leadership to expand the team overseeing child safety and welfare in 2021, according to documents and emails released by Congress ahead of the hearing. is also facing doubts. At the hearing, Zuckerberg said Meta spent $5 billion last year on trust and security.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap Inc.'s Evan Spiegel, and Discord Inc.'s Jason Citron were testifying before Congress for the first time, and they didn't take it lightly.
Linda Yaccarino attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 31st in Washington, DC.
Mr. Yaccarino, who took over as CEO of Company X last June, sponsored one of the bipartisan committee bills that has yet to be voted on by the full Senate. The bill, known as the STOP CSAM Act, aims to empower victims of child sexual abuse by allowing them to sue social media companies. The bill would also make it easier for victims to request that content related to child sex abuse be removed from online platforms.
“As a mother, this is personal and I share the sense of crisis,” Yaccarino said. “The time has come to criminalize the sharing of intimate material without consent under federal standards.”
Unlike other social media companies that focus on bringing in younger users, Yaccarino emphasized X's older customer base. “X is not the platform of choice for children and teens,” she said, adding that teens automatically default to private settings. Less than 1% of X's 90 million U.S. users are minors, Yaccarino said.
Mr. Yaccarino and Mr. Spiegel both expressed support for the Kids Online Safety Act, but Secretary X stopped short of supporting it, and Snap also expressed support. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, R-Connecticut, on the committee, would protect children from content that promotes violence, sexual exploitation, drug abuse, and eating disorders. It sets legal requirements for technology companies to protect themselves.
“No law is perfect, but some rules of the road are better than none,” Spiegel said.
Yaccarino said the Kids Online Safety Act “must continue to evolve, and we support our continued commitment to it to ensure free speech protections.”
TikTok CEO Xu Chu, whose app is owned by China's ByteDance, faces questions not only about the safety of children but also about the company's ties to the Chinese Communist Party. did. Hawley repeatedly called for a nationwide ban on the popular app.
Mr. Chu last appeared before a House committee about a year ago. As part of Chu's testimony, TikTok, a popular video service with more than 170 million monthly active users in the United States, pledged to spend $2 billion this year on global trust and safety.
TikTok supports the STOP CSAM law “for the most part,” Chu said, but there are questions about how it will be implemented.
© 2024 Bloomberg
