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Zuckerberg apologizes to families during Senate hearing
02:02 – Source: CNN
- What happened: The Senate Judiciary Committee grilled the chief executives of five big tech companies, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, about potential harms from their products on teens.
- Zuckerberg apologized: Zuckerberg stood to apologize to the families in the hearing room, saying: “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 wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”
- What safety advocates are saying: With growing claims that social media can hurt young users, including worries that it risks driving them to depression or even suicide, some online safety advocates at the hearing said the apologies from tech executives fell far short.
Our coverage of the hearing has wrapped. For more on what we learned, click here.
Bridgette Norring, a mother whose son died from an accidental fentanyl overdose after ordering a pill off of Snapchat, slammed the apology she received today from Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel as “fake.”
When asked what was going through her mind as she listened to the tech CEOs defend themselves, Norring said that it was “very frustrating to sit and listen to them.”
Norring appeared on CNN News Central shortly after the hearing concluded alongside Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota. She held a picture of her son, Devin Norring, as she spoke, with the emotion apparent in her voice.
Klobuchar was visibly shaken during the hearing, calling for lawmakers to finally enact change after what she said was decades of inaction on legislation aimed at reeling in social media companies.
“I just want to get this stuff done, I’m so tired of this,” Klobuchar told CNN News Central. “It’s been 28 years, what since the internet? We haven’t passed any of these bills … it’s time to actually pass them.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, several lawmakers lamented the fact that it’s nearly impossible to successfully sue the social media giants to hold them accountable for problematic content on their platforms.
“I am tired of talking. I’m tired of having discussions,” South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham 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.”
The reason it’s so hard to sue social media platforms is a 28-year-old federal law called “Section 230,” which holds that tech companies cannot be held liable for the content that users post to their platforms.
The statute has for years been criticized by both Republicans and Democrats. But tech companies and digital rights groups have defended as vital to a functioning internet.
On Wednesday, lawmakers called for the repeal of Section 230.
“It is now time to make sure that the people who are holding up the signs can sue on behalf of their loved ones. Nothing will change until the courtroom door is open to victims and social media,” Graham said.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey went after tech CEOs following Wednesday’s hearing, saying the executives had little to offer besides “excuses.”
“Their CEOs showed up today with even more excuses. It was outrageous,” Markey said.
Markey who pioneered the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a 1998 law that bars the nonconsensual collection of data of kids under age 13, urged his congressional colleagues to pass an update to the law extending those protections to teens.
As he concluded his remarks and walked away, onlookers shouted after him urging Markey to support the Kids Online Safety Act, another hot-button bill backed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn.
In a press conference on the Capitol grounds, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez described testimony by Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs as a “command performance” but said that parents can attest that the platforms “aren’t living up to their promises.”
Zuckerberg, he said, “needs to start acting like a parent. He has kids himself. He needs to start acting like that.”
Torrez filed a lawsuit against Meta in December, which accuses the company of creating a “breeding ground” for child predators.
Arturo Béjar, a Meta whistleblower who went public last year alleging Mark Zuckerberg ignored internal warnings about child safety, told CNN the company’s behavior in the hearing made clear Zuckerberg does not prioritize the issue.
Internal documents released by two US lawmakers today highlighted how Zuckerberg did not respond to senior executives’ warnings that inaction could create major risks for the company.
“The emails the Senate made available today, and his responses during testimony, show that Mark Zuckerberg and Meta do not care about the harm teens experience on their products,” Béjar said. “[Meta President of Global Affairs] Clegg writes about profound gaps with addiction, self-harm, bullying and harassment to Mark. Mark did not respond, and those gaps are unaddressed today … Children are not his priority.”
The families of people harmed by social media proved to be an immense force in Wednesday’s hearing.
Through applause, laughter at CEO testimony, hisses and moments of silence, the parents who say their children suffered or died as a result of social media served as a key foil. They drove tensions higher and in some cases appeared to fuel the attacks of lawmakers against the CEOs.
Congress has held many tech CEO hearings. But more than any other, the presence of so many parents in the room transformed the hearing and injected an unprecedented sense of urgency.
The Facebook whistleblower who kicked off years of scrutiny on the impact of social media on teens said Mark Zuckerberg’s apology to parents was “mindblowing.”
Today’s hearing would have been inconceivable just a handful of years ago, she said, when lawmakers were asking Zuckerberg basic questions about how his company makes money.
“Almost every hearing since has been substantially more meaningful, and they’ve asked more insightful questions, more relevant questions. This was four hours long, and there were maybe 20 minutes where I was like, ‘Do you really know what you’re asking?’ And that’s amazing.”
Asked about the potential for legislation to move forward, Haugen said she would be surprised if “we make it through another [electoral] cycle where we don’t see something.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s grilling of four social media executives produced some notable moments. Here are a few:
Zuckerberg, Spiegel personally apologize to families: Meta CEO Zuckerberg stood to apologize to the families in the hearing room. “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” he said. “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-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel also 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.
“The dark side” of social media products “is too great”: 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.
Hating social media companies is a rare unifying force on Capitol Hill: Wednesday’s hearing again demonstrates the breadth of criticism for social media companies among lawmakers, a rare bipartisan topic on Capitol Hill. Despite both parties’ appetite for going after tech platforms, however, Congress has yet to pass meaningful legislation to regulate social media companies. Most of the action has taken place in state legislatures and in the courts, which have become battlegrounds for new policies including age minimums for social media.
Read the full rundown of key hearing moments here.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has wrapped its hearing where lawmakers grilled four tech executives — Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok’s Shou Chew, X’s Linda Yaccarino and Discord’s Jason Citron — on the online child sexual exploitation crisis.
Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn confronted Zuckerberg on internal Meta documents suggesting that the company estimates the lifetime value of a teen user at $270.
“How could you possibly even have that thought? It is astounding to me,” Blackburn said, before recognizing a group of youth advocates in the audience and inviting them to stand.
When they did so, the advocates revealed that they were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “I am worth more than $270.”
“Children are not your priority. Children are your product,” Blackburn told Zuckerberg in the tense exchange.
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.”
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.”
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 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:
6a3a22f7-51f8-4249-9d89-5ec251fbaa5f.mp4
00:44 – Source: cnn
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.
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?”
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.
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.
