Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, apologizes to families during a heated US Senate hearing.

In a contentious Senate hearing, Meta’s chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg expressed regret to families who claimed their kids had suffered from social media abuse. “No-one should go through” what they had to go through, Mr. Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, said to them.

Senate members from both parties questioned him and the executives of TikTok, Snap, X, and Discord for nearly four hours. Legislators were curious about the steps being taken to safeguard minors on the internet. Congress is currently debating legislation that would make social media companies answerable for content published on their platforms. The hearing on Wednesday gave US senators a unique chance to grill tech executives.

The CEOs of TikTok and Snap, X (previously Twitter), and Discord initially declined to testify in front of government-issued subpoenas, but Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Chew willingly agreed to do so. Families who claimed their children had killed themselves or self-harmed due to social media content were seated beneath the five tech executives.

They let it be known throughout, hissing at the entrance of the CEOs and cheering when the lawmakers posed pointed questions. The senators made extensive use of having five influential executives present while they were under oath, even though the hearing’s primary focus was on safeguarding kids from online sexual exploitation.

When asked if TikTok, a company owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, shared user information alongside the Chinese government, CEO Mr. Chew of TikTok responded negatively. Senator Tom Cotton of the United States questioned Mr. Chew, a Singaporean, about his membership in the Chinese Communist the Democratic Party. “I’m from Singapore, Senator. No, Mr. Chew answered. “Have you ever been associated or affiliated with Chinese Communist Party?” Mr. Cotton then inquired.

Mr. Chew answered, “Senator, no. I’m Singaporean once more.” Being the father of three small children, he continued, he was aware that the topics being discussed were “horrific as well as the worst nightmare for each parent”. He acknowledged that his own kids had not used TikTok due to Singaporean laws prohibiting under-13s from opening accounts.

But as he gave his eighth testimony before Congress, Mr. Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, was the one who was most questioned. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, once questioned Mark Zuckerberg, saying, “Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?” when he displayed to the tech chief an Instagram prompt that requests users to choose whether to “see the results anyway” despite alerting them to the possibility of child sexual abuse content.

Zuckerberg stated that the “basic science behind that” is that “it’s often helpful to, rather than just blocking it, to help direct them towards something that could be helpful”. Additionally, he “pledged that personally look into it”.

In another conversation with Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, Mr. Zuckerberg was asked to extend his condolences to the families seated behind him. He got up, turned to face the crowd, and apologized for everything that had happened to them all. It was awful. “No-one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.”

Senators angry about slow progress

The main topic of discussion during the hearing was how the corporations felt about the online safety laws that Congress is now working on. Republican congresswoman Lindsey Graham and Discord’s Jason Citron had a heated exchange that encapsulated this. Mr. Graham asked Mr. Citron if he supported the various internet safety-related bills that were being considered by Congress.

Although Mr. Graham did not give Mr. Citron much time to reply, the head of Discord seemed uneasy about the majority of them. Mr. Graham ended by saying: “So here you are – if you’re waiting on these guys to solve the problem, we’re gonna die waiting.”

New safety precautions, such as the default inability for minors to receive messages from strangers on Instagram and Messenger, were announced by Meta ahead of the hearing. Analyst for the social media sector Matt Navarra stated to the news channel that he felt the hearing was like many other identical showdowns, with “an abundance of US political arrogance” and Mr. Zuckerberg’s apology providing a perfect opportunity for a picture.

He continued by saying that although senators were in agreement that bipartisan legislation was necessary to control platforms, it was still unclear what would happen next.

“We’ve seen these hearings time and time again and they have often, so far, led still to not actually generate any significant or substantial regulation,” he stated. “We’re in 2024 and US has virtually no regulation, as was pointed out during the hearings, with regards to the social media companies.”

The bosses also disclosed the number of employees they had in charge of platform content moderation. The platforms with the highest user counts, Meta and TikTok, claimed to have 40,000 moderators apiece, while Snap claimed to have 2,300, X 2,000, and Discord – which claimed to be smaller – “hundreds” of moderators.

The messaging app Discord has faced criticism in the past for its methods for identifying and stopping child abuse on its network. Several of the parents in attendance at the hearing organized a rally outside after it, with some of them urging lawmakers to enact legislation holding businesses accountable as soon as possible.

Joann Bogard, whose son Mason passed away in May 2019, said, “Like me, many parents continue to think that these harms that we’re talking about today won’t affect their families.” He had participated, she said. “Many parents still believe, as I did, that the harms we are discussing today won’t have an impact on their households,” stated Joann Bogard, whose child Mason passed away in May 2019. She claimed he had participated in the choking trend on TikTok.

“These harms are happening overnight to our average kids,” she stated. “The testimonials are here. It is imperative that our lawmakers enact the Children’s Online Safety Act right away. Attendee Arturo Bejar, an earlier top staff participant who testified before Congress in the month of November 2023, told the news channel that Meta is attempting to shift the burden of providing a safe space for teenagers onto parents by refusing to include a button that allows teens to report unwanted advances. “How can they make it safe for teens without that?” In order to support a safe online environment for teenagers, Meta stated during today’s hearing that it was bringing in “over 30 tools”.

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