Source: AFP
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of X, TikTok, Discord and Snap are facing criticism from US lawmakers on Wednesday over the dangers social media platforms pose to children and teenagers.
Tech chiefs have been summoned by the US Senate Judiciary Committee, where they will be asked about the effects of social media in a hearing titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.”
The hearing could be exhausting for officials facing political anger for not doing enough to prevent online dangers to children, including sexual predators.
“There are no tools to hold the company accountable. Instead, survivors and advocates are left to ask these companies to choose safety over profit,” said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who chairs the Judiciary Committee.
Zuckerberg, X’s Linda Yaccarino, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, Snap’s Evan Spiegel and Discord’s Jason Citron will testify for the senators.
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“I’m proud of the work our teams have done to improve children’s online safety, not just on our services but across the entire Internet,” Meta’s Zuckerberg will tell the committee, according to his prepared testimony that saw AFP.
Ahead of their filing, Meta and X, formerly of Twitter, announced new measures seeking to satisfy any political pushback.
Meta, which owns the world’s leading platforms Facebook and Instagram, said it would block instant messages sent to young teenagers by strangers.
By default, teens under 16 can now only be messaged or added to group chats by people they already follow or are connected to.
Meta also increased content restrictions for teens on Instagram and Facebook, making it harder for them to see posts that discuss suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.
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Zuckerberg will tell lawmakers that about 40,000 Meta employees work on internet security and that $20 billion has been invested since 2016 to keep the platform more secure.
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It will also support legislation providing age verification and clear parental controls.
But the senators will point to internal company documents that show Zuckerberg refused to beef up teams dedicated to monitoring online risks to teens.
“The hypocrisy is shocking,” US Senator Richard Blumenthal told the New York Times.
Those documents are part of a large lawsuit brought by about 40 states that jointly sued Meta for alleged failures with children.
These lawsuits allege that Meta knowingly allows users under the age of 13 on the Instagram platform, disabling only a fraction of those accounts.
The lawsuits also accuse Meta of concealing internal studies showing user harm on Instagram and Facebook.
Under US law, web platforms are largely protected from legal liability in relation to content shared on their website.
While lawmakers would like to enact more rules to increase online security, the new laws have been blocked by a politically divided Washington and intense lobbying by big tech.
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One existing proposal is the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, which aims to protect children from algorithms that can cause anxiety or depression.
Source: AFP
Another idea would require social media platforms to verify the age of account holders and ban children under 13 altogether.
X also announced last week, ahead of the hearing, that it had formed a team in Texas to root out child sexual exploitation content and other violations of the platform’s rules.
When Elon Musk first took over Twitter in 2022, he imposed massive staff cuts that decimated the company’s trust and security teams.
Musk, a self-proclaimed “absolute of free speech”, also promised to remove content restrictions, with many banned figures allowed to return.
Source: AFP