[ad_1]
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Linda Yaccarino and other tech industry leaders faced a grilling from lawmakers today as they appeared for a landmark Senate hearing on the online exploitation of children.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) blamed the tech platforms at the outset for allowing the exploitation to proliferate, while dismissing the latest efforts the companies have taken to boost safety.
“They are responsible for many of the dangers our children face online,” Durbin said, calling it a “crisis in America.”
“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands. You have a product that is killing people,” said the top Republican on the committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), told Zuckerberg, as he sat at the witness table.
He called for the repeal of Section 230, the provision of a 1996 law that shielded platforms from liability for the third party content posted on their sites.
Graham noted that Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) had found “emails from your company where they warned you about this stuff, and you decided not to hire 45 people that could do a better job of policing this.”
“So the bottom line is, you can’t be sued. You should be, and these emails would be great for punitive damages,” Graham said.
Zuckerberg stared intently at Graham as he faced his criticism.
Also appearing at the hearing was the CEO of TikTok, Shou Chew; Snap co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel; and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
Durbin said that Zuckerberg and Chew were appearing at the hearing voluntarily, while the others attended after being subpoenaed.
In the background of the hearing, demonstrators held photos of children who have been victims of online exploitation. The hearing started with a video in which victims told of being sexually exploited online. A mother stared into the camera and said that her child died from suicide after being exploited on Facebook. Others told of futile efforts to get platforms to act. “How many more kids will suffer and die from social media?” one parent asked.
But Congress has taken little action to limit the power on tech companies, nearly six years after Zuckerberg testified solo at a hearing that marked a turning point in the tech industry’s interaction with lawmakers. Although they have been on defense on an array of issues, including on other issues like antitrust, content moderation and the influence of foreign actors, legislation has stalled out, even on basic reforms like privacy.
Major cable news networks carried portions of the hearing, including Zuckerberg’s opening statement.
Chou said, “I know that the issues that we are discussing today are horrific and the nightmare for every parent.”
[ad_2]
Source link
