Tech CEOs face intense questioning by US lawmakers regarding child safety concerns on social media
In a high-pressure hearing before the US Senate Judiciary Committee, CEOs of big tech firms are grilled about the safety of children and teens on social media
In a high-pressure hearing before the US Senate Judiciary Committee, titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” CEOs of big tech firms were grilled by lawmakers on Wednesday about the safety of children and teens on social media.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in addition to execs from TikTok (Shou Zi Chew), X (Linda Yaccarino), Snap (Evan Spiegel), and Discord (Jason Citron), was summoned to testify. The session mainly centered on the perceived inadequacy of these platforms to effectively shield youngsters from online hazards like sexual abuse and teenage suicide.
Senator Lindsey Graham spoke directly to Zuckerberg, saying, “Mister Zuckerberg, you and the companies preceding us, I know you don’t intend it to be this way, but you have blood on your hands. You have a product that is killing people.”
The opening statement of the founder of Meta underscored the company’s long-term commitment to overcoming these challenges, whereby he stated, “Keeping young people safe online has been a challenge since the internet began, and as criminals evolve their tactics, we have to evolve our defenses too.”
The issues are grave, and Shou Zi Chew of TikTok vowed to spend more than $2 billion on trust and safety. Chew showed that the platform is committed to solving the issues and Chew made mention of the 40,000 safety professionals who are currently engaged in working towards the resolution of these issues.
Before the hearing Meta announced major actions that include the blocking of direct messages sent to teens aged 13 to 15 years by strangers on Facebook and Instagram. Moreover, there was a change in the default messaging settings for individuals under 16 to be limited to allowing messaging with those they already follow or are associated with.
In defense of the accusations, Meta claims that 40,000 employees work with online security; $20 billion has been invested since 2016 in making the platforms safer.
Senators focused on the internal documents, especially in the case of states suing Meta for approximately 40 states. Senator Richard Blumenthal alleged that the documents disclose the unwillingness of Zuckerberg to reform teams responsible for tracking online dangers to teens, thus, accusing him of hypocrisy.
However, there are several proposals available in the existing body of literature such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) that can help to improve the online safety of children. Nevertheless, political bickering in Washington and lobbying by tech titans have rubbed off the momentum of such regulations.
In light of the coming hearing, X—formerly Twitter—informed of taking steps to address the issue of child sexual exploitation content and the violation of the platform rules. The company was focused on the combination of the freedom of speech and the platform integrity.
However, there were growing fears about the effect of the takeover of Elon Musk on Twitter on its security procedures in 2022, which resulted in serious cuts in the ranks of the trust and safety teams.
Source: AFP
