The CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies are testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about child exploitation on their platforms, as lawmakers, families and advocates are growing increasingly concerned about the effects of social media on young people’s lives.
The hearing started with recorded testimonies from kids and parents who said they or their children were exploited on social media.
The hearing started with recorded testimonies from kids and parents who said they or their children were exploited on social media.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Discord has been used to groom, abduct and abuse children.
00:04 Meta's Instagram helped connect and promote a network of pedophiles.
00:09 Snapchat's disappearing messages have been co-opted by criminals who
00:13 financially extort young victims. Tick-tock has become a quote "platform of
00:19 choice for predators to access, engage and groom children for abuse" and the
00:25 prevalence of CSAM on X has grown as the company has gutted its trust and safety
00:29 workforce. Today we'll hear from the CEOs of those companies. They are not only the
00:35 tech companies that have contributed to this crisis, they are responsible for
00:39 many of the dangers our children face online. Their design choices, their
00:44 failures to adequately invest in trust and safety, their constant pursuit of
00:49 engagement and profit over basic safety have all put our kids and grandkids at
00:54 risk. I hope we can have a substantive discussion today that drives
00:57 improvements across the industry including legislation that delivers what
01:01 parents say they want. A clear system for age verification and control over what
01:06 apps their kids are using. Three out of four parents want app store age
01:11 verification and four out of five want parental approval of whatever whenever
01:16 teens download apps. We support this. Parents should have the final say on
01:22 what apps are appropriate for their children and shouldn't have to upload
01:25 their ID every time. That's what app stores are for. We also support setting
01:30 industry standards on age-appropriate content and limiting signals for
01:34 advertising to teens to age and location and not behavior. At the end of the day
01:39 we want everyone who uses our services to have safe and positive experiences.
01:44 So you didn't take any action, you didn't take any action, you didn't
01:48 fire anybody, you haven't compensated a single victim. Let me ask you this, let me
01:51 ask you this, there's families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the
01:54 victims? Would you like to do so now? Well they're here, you're on national
02:00 television. Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been
02:04 harmed by your product? Show them the pictures. Would you like to apologize for
02:08 what you've done to these good people?
02:11 I'm sorry for everything that you have all gone through. It's terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.
02:20 And this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things that your families have had to suffer.
02:34 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.
02:42 You have a product. You have a product that's killing people. When we had
02:52 cigarettes killing people, we did something about it, maybe not enough. You're going to
02:56 talk about guns, we have the ATF. Nothing here. There's not a damn thing anybody can
03:02 do about it. You can't be sued.
03:04 We want America to lead in this solution.
03:08 X commends the Senate for passing the Report Act, and we support the SHIELD Act. It is time for a federal standard to criminalize the sharing of non-consensual, intimate material.
03:26 We need to raise the standards across the entire Internet ecosystem, especially for those tech companies that are not here today and not stepping up.
03:40 X supports the Stop CSAM Act.
03:45 The Kids Online Safety Act should continue to progress, and we will support the continuation to engage with it and ensure the protections of the freedom of speech.
03:58 There are two additional areas that require everyone's attention.
04:04 First, as the daughter of a police officer, law enforcement must have the critical resources to bring these bad offenders to justice.
04:19 Second, with artificial intelligence, offenders' tactics will continue to sophisticate and evolve. Industry collaboration is imperative here.
04:32 X believes that the freedom of speech and platform safety can and must coexist.
04:40 We agree that now is the time to act with urgency.
04:46 The steps that we're taking to protect teens are a critical part of our larger trust and safety work as we continue our voluntary and unprecedented efforts to build a safe and secure data environment for U.S. users,
05:00 ensuring that our platform remains free from outside manipulation and implementing safeguards on our content recommendation and moderation tools.
05:11 Keeping teens safe online requires a collaborative effort as well as collective action.
05:16 We share the community's concern and commitment to protect young people online, and we welcome the opportunity to work with you on legislation to achieve this goal.
05:25 Our commitment is ongoing and unwavering because there is no finish line when it comes to protecting teens.
05:31 Even with our strict privacy settings, content moderation efforts, proactive detection, and law enforcement collaboration, bad things can still happen when people use online services.
05:42 That's why we believe that people under the age of 13 are not ready to communicate on Snapchat.
05:47 We strongly encourage parents to use the device-level parental controls on iPhone and Android.
05:52 We use them in our own households, and my wife approves every app that our 13-year-old downloads.
05:57 We recognize that improving online safety requires all of us to work together.
06:02 So we partner with nonprofits, law enforcement, and our tech colleagues to stay ahead of the curve in protecting young people online.
06:10 We want to be the platform that empowers our users to have better online experiences, to build true connections, genuine friendships, and to have fun.
06:21 Senators, I sincerely hope today is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue that results in real improvements in online safety.
06:28 For the past 30 years, Section 230 has remained largely unchanged, allowing big tech to grow into the most profitable industry in the history of capitalism without fear of liability for unsafe practices.
06:41 That has to change.
06:43 Over the past year, this committee has unanimously reported five bills that would finally hold tech companies accountable for child sexual exploitation on their platforms.
06:54 Unanimous.
06:55 Take a look at the opposition and membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and imagine if you will, there's anything we could agree on unanimously.
07:03 Let this hearing be a call to action.
07:05 We need to get kids' online safety legislation to the President's desk.