Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) thundered at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a Senate Judiciary Committee on online child safety.
Lawmakers are tackling issues on how corporate executives respond to issues of child abuse online.
Zuckerberg and Tiktok boss Shou Zi Chew agreed to testify voluntarily, while leaders of Snap, X, and Discord were sent subpoenas to attend the hearing.
These executives sat for four hours with the legislators to discuss shortcomings and how to address them on issues of online child safety on social media.
During the discussion, Sen. Cruz probed Zuckerberg on the child sex abuse images on Instagram and how predators use the platform to exploit children. He went on to ask about the spread of hashtags on Instagram that allowed abusers to find children’s images prone to abuse.
The Republican senator also called out the CEO for its loose community guidelines on Meta that do not do much to keep the users safe.
Cruz cited Meta’s warning screen that pops up when a material is flagged as “potentially harmful,” and offers the user the choice between “get resources” or “see results anyway.”
The Texas senator blasted, “Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?”
The Meta chief responds, “Senator, the basic science behind that hen people are searching for something problematic, it’s often rather than just blocking it to hepl direct them toward that.”
Cruz then clapped back and questioned why “get resources” was placed. To which Zuckerberg explained the possibility that their algorithm is wrong.
During the entire hearing, the families of children who were self-harmed or killed themselves as a result of social media content listened behind the executives.
The families held pictures of their children and jeered the tech leaders.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) pressed Zuckerberg if they feel accountable for their platforms’ effect on its users, but the Meta owner dodged the question.
Later on, Hawley urged him to apologize to the families directly.
The Missouri senator said, “They’re here. You’re on national television … Would you like to apologize for what you’ve done to these good people?”
Zuckerberg turned to the parents and said, “It’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.”
“And this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) described the proliferating online child exploitation as a “crisis in America.”
Along with discussing the protection of children, the senators also took the time to probe the social media leaders about data privacy.
In June 2023, The Wall Street Journal published an article exposing how a big-time pedophile network utilizes Instagram to sell child pornography among sex predators.
Investigative journalists found “thousands of posts dedicated to advertising sex content featuring children” who thrived on Instagram and exploited its poor community guidelines against illegal and abusive content.
