Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to families over social media harms in contentious Senate hearing

Senator John Kennedy during the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis" in Washington, DC, today.

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said Meta platforms have become a “killing field of information” where users “see only one side of an issue.”

Zuckerberg rejected this characterization of his business.

In this environment, Kennedy claimed, the platforms can become a “cesspool of snark.”

Asking if Facebook makes it clear to its users how their data is monetized by the platform, Kennedy said, “Does your user agreement still suck?”

This prompted some laughter in the room.

Zuckerberg said people get the basics of how social media works.

“You’re in the foothills of creepy. You track people who aren’t even Facebook users,” Kennedy said. “I just wonder if if our technology is greater than our humanity in the interest of this funnel.”

In conclusion, Kennedy told Zuckerberg, “If you think that Instagram is not hurting millions of our young people, particularly young teens, particularly young women, you shouldn’t be driving.”

Mark Zuckerberg, center, addresses the audience during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, DC, today.

Youth advocates in the room are pushing back on Mark Zuckerberg’s apology, saying talk is cheap and calling for the company to “step out of the way” of national regulation.

Arielle Geismar, 22, started using Instagram a decade ago and says she was directly affected by eating disorder content on the app.

During an interview on the sideline of the hearing, she accused Zuckerberg of downplaying a link between social media and mental health harms, and dismissed his claims that Meta and other platforms are working hard to create safe spaces for users.

“It feels disgusting to sit there and be lied to,” Geismar told CNN. “His words are less than a drop in the bucket … it is really, really nice for him to be able to say a few words and assuage everything, but it doesn’t bring back any human and it doesn’t take back the harm.”

Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of the advocacy group Design It For Us, called Zuckerberg’s apology “a pretty insane moment” during an interview with CNN.

“I think it was pretty emotional for a lot of people in the room. You’re in here, you can kind of feel that tension right now. It certainly feels like there’s a tide turning in trying to get something done here.”

Co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc. Evan Spiegel during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, today.

In response to prompting from California Democrat Sen. Laphonza Butler, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel apologized to families whose children have died after they purchased drugs on Snapchat.

“I’m so sorry that we have not been able to prevent these tragedies,” Spiegel said, before detailing some of the efforts the company takes to protect young users, including proactively monitoring for drug-related content and working to educate teens and families about the dangers of fentanyl.

“I know that there are good efforts. None of those things are keeping kids from getting access to drugs on your platform,” Butler said in response.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, center, speaks as Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, left, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino, right, listen during the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on online child safety on Capitol Hill, today.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew was grilled several times on the company’s connection to China, via its parent company ByteDance, and the amount of access and influence the platform grants to the Chinese government.

In one instance, Chew told Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton that it was “a coincidence” that he was appointed CEO of the platform a day after the Chinese Communist Party’s China internet investment fund bought a 1% stake in ByteDance’s main Chinese subsidiary, getting a seat on the board of the subsidiary. Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley also questioned Chew about the company’s connections to China and its communist party.

In another instance, under questioning from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Chew described the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing as a “massive protest.” While Chew’s characterization of the event is accurate, it omits the subsequent bloody crackdown against pro-democracy activists by the Chinese government that today is heavily censored on the Chinese internet.

When later pressed about on his answer by Sen. Cotton, Chew said the event was also “a massacre.”

Chew has previously testified to Congress that TikTok allows content about Tiananmen Square on its platform. TikTok does not operate within China. But its parent company, ByteDance, distributes a substantially similar app known as Douyin.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood to apologize to the families present at the Senate hearing, saying he was sorry for “the things that your families have suffered.”

“I’m sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry leading efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer,” he said.

In response, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley called on Zuckerberg, as a billionaire, to “compensate” the families whose children have been affected by his platforms.

Here’s the moment:

Video Ad Feedback

6a3a22f7-51f8-4249-9d89-5ec251fbaa5f.mp4

0:44 • Source: cnn

6a3a22f7-51f8-4249-9d89-5ec251fbaa5f.mp4

0:44 • cnn

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) points a finger as he asks questions during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the U.S. Capitol today.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz slammed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for loose practices on Instagram — a platformed owned by Meta — that don’t do much to protect children from explicit content.

He demonstrated an example of a warning screen that pops up when a user is searching for child abuse material, and noted that Instagram offers the user the choice between “get resources” or “see results anyway.”

The executive said this screen pops up across all searches that the platform may deem problematic, but the option to see results anyway is offered in case the platform’s algorithm is wrong. Cruz did not accept that answer.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, left, and Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, during a hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. Congress has increasingly scrutinized social media platforms as growing evidence suggests that excessive use and the proliferation of harmful content may be damaging young people's mental health.

Social media companies have created products that have an upside, but they also have a dark side that is “too great to live with,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday while grilling chief executives of four such companies.

Until social media companies are sued for the damage they are doing, Graham warned that there will be no change.

“I am tired of talking. I’m tired of having discussions,” he said. “Open up the courthouse door. Until you do that, nothing will change. Until these people can be sued for the damage they’re doing, it is all talk.”

He added, “I’m a Republican who believes in free enterprise, but I also believe that every American who’s been wronged has to have somebody to go to to complain. There is no commission to go to that can punish you. There’s not one law in the book because you oppose everything we do, and you can’t be sued. That has to stop, folks.”

Graham stressed on the importance of having legal framework to hold the companies accountable.

Multiple lawmakers highlighted the sharp contrast between the public response to social media harms and the recent incident involving a Boeing aircraft that saw a door plug blown off in mid-flight.

“One door flew off of one plane. No one was hurt,” said Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons. “And yet the entire Boeing fleet, of that type of plane, was grounded and a federal fit-for-purpose agency did an immediate safety review.”

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar also brought up the Boeing incident and broad support to ground the fleet. “So why aren’t we taking the same decisive action,” she asked, “when we know these kids are dying?”

Senator John Cornyn during the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," in Washington, DC, today.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn is once again raising fears about TikTok’s links to China through its parent company ByteDance, questioning CEO Shou Chew about his talks with US national security regulators.

The exchange is a reminder that although Wednesday’s hearing is focused on child safety, it is closely tied to how social media platforms handle US user data and the potential availability of that data to foreign adversaries if stored abroad.

TikTok has built a program named Project Texas to host US user data only on servers within the United States and overseen by US-based personnel. Critics, however, say they are skeptical that the program will completely eliminate the influence of ByteDance and the risks that US user data could end up in the hands of Beijing via ByteDance.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, as he testifies today in Washington, DC before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the dangers of child sexual exploitation on social media.

Apple and Google, not social media companies, should be responsible for checking users’ ages to ensure they are not underage, Zuckerberg told lawmakers, suggesting it would be “trivial” for Congress to design legislation regulating app store owners.

“My understanding is Apple and Google, or at least Apple, already requires parental consent when a child does a payment with an app,” Zuckerberg said. “So it should be pretty trivial to pass a law that requires them to make it so that parents have control anytime a child downloads an app.”

Meta previously outlined that proposal in a framework for federal legislation released this month that the company says is an alternative to some of the bills lawmakers have drafted.