Last Wednesday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham accused Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of having “blood on his hands” because, in his opinion, they are social networks “dangerous products that destroy lives and threaten democracy itself”.
This happened afterwards Zuckerberg apologizes to a group of family members They claim that their children have become victims of sexual abuse through the Internet, but deny that the use of social networks harms the mental health of minors.
Meta’s CEO said this during a US Senate hearing where Meta’s CEOs also testified. Snap, X (formerly Twitter), Discord and TikTok to analyze the measures tech giants are taking to stop child sexual abuse on their platforms.
Zuckenberg defended Meta against allegations of abuseand points out that there is no scientific evidence linking social media use to poorer mental health.
“A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, theevaluated more than 300 studiesdoes not support the conclusion that social networks cause changes in the mental health of adolescents,” explained the meta director.
A statement that caused a stir in the public, in which relatives of victims of harassment on social networks expressed who Zuckerberg finally publicly asked for forgivenessat the request of the congressmen.
“I’m sorry for everything they’ve been through,” the Meta leader said, adding Nobody should have suffered this “terrible” situation.
In his interventions The five witnesses admitted their responsibility therefore, to ensure the safety of their respective communities, they were open to addressing the issue and working with lawmakers.
But when asked about their support for the proposed bills, none of them answered clearly Congressmen punish his “grave silence”. “If we wait for these people to solve the problem, we will die waiting,” Graham charged.
Managing director Linda Yaccarino explained this on behalf of X “Less than 1% of X users are between 13 and 17 years old”so he moved away from the problem being discussed.
For his part, Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok, pointed this out “intends to invest more than $2 billion this year alone” in security and has 40,000 professionals in the field, including child safety specialists.
Discord CEO Jason Citron explained that they use artificial intelligence to detect criminals on their network, but Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said otherwise The contents of your application will be deleted by default, copies will be retained in case “accountability” is required. “If this all worked, we wouldn’t be here today,” concluded Democratic Senator Richard Durbin.
There are several bills in Congress aimed at protecting children. as in the case of “Stop CSAM Act”The aim is to suppress the spread of child sexual abuse material online, support victims and increase the accountability of platforms.