Big Tech execs clash with Congress in contentious child safety hearing

WASHINGTON (CN) — A group of social media CEOs did not make any new friends Wednesday as lawmakers grilled them about whether Big Tech has effectively shielded children from online sexual abuse and exploitation.

The panel of top executives — headlined by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg; X, formerly Twitter, CEO Linda Yaccarino; and TikTok CEO Shou Chew — were hauled before the Senate Judiciary Committee as the upper chamber is considering a tranche of bills aimed at clamping down on online child sexual exploitation material and lifting legal barriers that shield social media companies from lawsuits.

Lawmakers for months have taken aim at Big Tech for what they view as comparatively lax online safety standards and a hesitance to self-regulate. The Judiciary Committee last year unanimously passed five bipartisan pieces of legislation on the issue, which are currently awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.

Addressing a hearing room packed with reporters, advocates and the families of online exploitation victims, Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin said Wednesday that social media has given would-be predators “powerful tools to sexually exploit children.”

“Your carefully crafted algorithms can be a more powerful force in the lives of our children than even the best-intentioned parents,” the Illinois Democrat said.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the committee’s Republican ranking member, put things more bluntly.

“You have blood on your hands,” the senator told Zuckerberg to a crackle of applause. “You have a product that’s killing people.”

Reports of online sexual abuse and extortion hit 186,000 last year, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The FBI has said that as many of 20 minors have died by suicide stemming from online abuse or extortion in recent years.

Despite that, the CEOs testifying Tuesday set out to defend their records on online child safety and expressed some willingness to work with lawmakers on legislation to that effect.

“We are on the side of parents everywhere working hard to raise their kids,” Zuckerberg told the committee. “We work hard to provide parents and teens support and controls to reduce potential harms.”

The Meta CEO and the other executives pointed to mechanisms their companies have implemented that they say take steps to address online safety.

Zuckerberg cited features on Instagram, which is owned by Meta, that allow teens and parents to set limits on app use and who can engage with their content.

Evan Spiegel, co-founder of image messaging platform Snapchat, said that his service employs family controls. Jason Citron, CEO of gaming-focused social media service Discord, pointed out that the platform employs image scanning technology to survey for inappropriate content.

Despite that, the CEOs largely waffled on their support for the raft of legislation under Senate consideration.

Facing questions from lawmakers, Citron refused to directly say whether he would support several of the proposed measures in their current form, although he expressed willingness to work with Congress on policy.

Both Spiegel and Zuckerberg wavered on supporting the Kids Online Safety Act, a measure penned by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn that would hold online service providers liable for minors that engage with their platforms.

However Yaccarino, who joined Elon Musk’s X last summer, told lawmakers that her company would back the Senate’s STOP CSAM Act. The measure would, among other things, build out legal protections for child victims and witnesses of exploitation material.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, meanwhile, were less than convinced by Big Tech’s commitments and took particular issue with Zuckerberg’s testimony.

“For too long, we have seen social media companies turn a blind eye,” said Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. “When kids have joined these platforms in record numbers, they have used algorithms that push harmful content, because that content got popular.”

The Democrat lawmaker pushed back on safety reforms proposed by social media companies. Responding to comments from Zuckerberg about Instagram’s family controls, Klobuchar was skeptical that such mechanisms were effective.

“I think these parents will tell you that stuff hasn’t worked,” she said. “It just gives parents control, but they don’t know what to do.”

Louisiana Senator John Kennedy branded reforms proposed by social media companies as “like putting paint on rotten wood.”

“It’s creepy,” Kennedy said of the influence of social media. “I wonder if our technology is greater than our humanity.”

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse demanded the executives provide in writing their positions on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields tech companies from liability for content disseminated on their platforms. All five of the witnesses agreed to do so.

During one particularly tense moment, Texas Senator Ted Cruz displayed a screenshot from a post on Instagram flagged as possible child sexual abuse content. The post presented users with two options: a button that redirected to child abuse resources and another that revealed the content.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?” Cruz exclaimed.

The Meta CEO, visibly frustrated, defended the feature by saying “we might be wrong” for flagging the post as inappropriate.

Zuckerberg did not answer Cruz’s demands to know how many times such a warning had been displayed.

It wasn’t just lawmakers giving the social media executives a hard time. It was a tough crowd, too — with members of the audience on several occasions laughing at the CEOs’ testimony and quips from committee members.

A group of people repeatedly held up framed photos of children who were victims of online abuse and exploitation. During his opening statement, Zuckerberg addressed those members of the crowd, but his sympathetic remarks were met with incredulity.

“No thanks,” someone in the audience called out.

In a poignant moment later on, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley forced Zuckerberg to stand up and apologize directly to the families of exploitation victims.

At a press conference following Wednesday’s hearing, both Graham and Durbin said they were left unsatisfied with Big Tech’s testimony.

“It was a pitiful performance by the industry,” said Graham. “It was borderline bullshit, wrapped up in a lot of spin.”

The South Carolina Republican bashed some of the witnesses, namely Discord CEO Citron, for being noncommittal on the five proposed bills awaiting action on the Senate floor.

“Here’s what I learned from the hearing today,” he said. “If you’re waiting on the industry to regulate itself, you’ll die waiting.”

Durbin also stressed the need for lawmakers to move forward with regulation clamping down on online child exploitation.

“This is an industry that can’t be taken to court no matter what,” he said. “That is unacceptable in a democratic system of government.”

The Judiciary Committee chair seemed reticent to hold up the tranche of proposed legislation to work out a compromise with social media companies.

“We don’t want to go into a stall — we’ve seen that happen too often,” he told reporters, adding that the Judiciary Committee had passed the bills in question last year and that they had been drafted in consultation with industry stakeholders.

“There comes a point where the matter has to be decided in the Senate and in the House,” Durbin said.

In addition to pushing for a floor vote on the current set of bills, Graham and Durbin said that they would start work on a bipartisan measure aimed at repealing Section 230.

Graham also addressed criticism about Congress’s role in allowing social media companies to get away with minimal child safety safeguards, saying that lawmakers “absolutely” bear some of the responsibility.

“How does Congress change?” he said. “You make us change. Here’s what I’m going to tell the members of the United States Senate: I’m not telling you how to vote, but you need to vote.”

Follow @BenjaminSWeiss

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Big Tech execs clash with Congress in contentious child safety hearing

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