Newsletter
The US Senate is tightening the grip on social platforms over children’s safety. The CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord are subpoenaed to testify before the Senate on January 31, 2024. The hearing is focused on online child exploitation and platform’s measures to protect minors.
The Senate Judiciary Committee formally issued a subpoena in November to CEOs of X (formerly Twitter), Discord, and Snap following “repeated refusals over weeks of negotiations by the three Big Tech leaders to testify.” The committee also requested Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew to participate in the hearing voluntarily.
Big Tech CEOs to testify before US Senate over online child exploitation
The subpoena was issued by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). These Senators claimed that online platforms failed to protect kids online. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, and Discord CEO Jason Citron will finally appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 31.
The US Senate held a hearing on children’s safety earlier this year with advocates and experts. Senators Durbin and Graham say tech platforms first were upset about not getting invited to the hearing. However, when they got the invitations, some refused to accept a subpoena. Senators added they look forward to hearing the CEO’s testimony.
All platforms whose CEOs must testify before the Senate have previously been accused of violating children’s privacy and failing to protect their underage users. The arising concerns prompted lawmakers to introduce the Online Safety Act (KOSA). The bill aims to control kid’s access to sensitive information on social platforms.
School districts across the US have recently filed a lawsuit against Meta, ByteDance, Alphabet, and Snap over designing platforms to be addictive to kids. Arturo Béjar, a former director of engineering for Protect and Care at Facebook, also appeared before the Senate to testify about firm’s polices to protect children. He claimed Meta can’t be trusted with our children.
The US Senate has so far introduced some bipartisan bills to stop the exploitation of kids online. Each state is also introducing its own bill to make social platforms safer for kids. Utah’s bill requires kids to obtain parental consent before signing up for a social platform. Louisiana and Mississippi bills are also focused on age verification.