US Senate judiciary committee begins hearings on reforms to rein online platforms following parents’ complaints

Washington, Jan 31 (SocialNews.XYZ) The US Senate on Wednesday began hearings against five major online internet platforms to kick in Congressional reforms to ensure child safety as parents raised concerns about spate of suicides by children and grilled them under the theme "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis".

Chief executives of five big social media companies began to testify before the Senate with some of them claiming they had introduced safeguards before the senate at the Congress building on Capitol. They are CEOs of X, Meta, TikTok, Discord and Snap.

Mark Zukerberg of Meta (Facebook) and Tesla Chief Elon Musk ( X – Twitter) are expected to testify.

In his opening statement, Senator Lindsey Graham called out several CEOs by name.

"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," Graham said to applause in the room.

"You have a product that's killing people." Graham acknowledged that he uses Meta products, adding that social media companies need to deal with the issues they've unleashed.

There are many proposed bills in the Senate aimed at protecting children on social media sites.

Public and organisational efforts to regulate social media ramped up across the US amid concerns from some parents that social media platforms do not do enough to keep kids safe.

In December 2023, more than 200 organisations sent a letter urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to schedule a vote on the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, which seeks to create liability, or a "duty of care", for apps and online platforms that recommend content to minors that can negatively affect their mental health, media reports said.

Other bipartisan bills, like the Stop CSAM Act, have also been introduced.

The tech executives are expected to reaffirm their commitment to child safety.

Many of the social media platforms have pointed to various tools they offer as examples of how they are proactive about preventing exploitation online.

Snap has said it supports KOSA, NBC reported.

In his opening statement, Ranking Member Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that "while Washington is certainly broken, there is a ray of hope" in bipartisan support for increased child safety regulation for social media sites.

Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have faced intense criticism over the years around child safety issues.

In the audience were some parents who said that Instagram contributed to their childrens' suicide or exploitation.

In the hearing room, Senators grilled the CEOs on complaints of lack of child safety and said parents claimed their children were killed or affected in part by social media platforms.

Many parents brought photos of their children to hold as the senators questioned the CEOs, and many were wearing blue ribbons saying "STOP Online Harms! Pass KOSA!"

KOSA is the Kids Online Safety Act, which would create a duty of care for social media companies.

Relatives held pictures of children before the start of the "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," on Wednesday.

In his opening statement, Zuckerberg told lawmakers that teens have reported positive experiences on Meta apps.

He emphasized new features that have been rolled out on Facebook and Instagram that restrict teens' experiences on the platforms and encourage them to log off at night.

Meta has invested $5 billion in child safety over the past year, Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said he supported age verification and parental controls for minors.

He also advocated for industry standards for age-appropriate content.

He wrapped up by directly addressing the families of children who lost their lives because of social media.

"These issues are important for every parent and every platform," he said.

"I'm committed to continuing to work in these areas and I hope we can make progress today."

Some audience members in the Senate hearing room groaned and shouted through Zuckerberg's opening statements.

When the Meta CEO said that "the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health", murmurs spread through the room.

As Zuckerberg acknowledged the parents of dead children in the audience, one person shouted "No Thanks".

'X' CEO Linda Yaccarino referenced companies that weren't in the hearing room in her opening statement.

For many advocates and parents, the first missing company that comes to mind was Apple. In ads ahead of the hearing, a group called the Heat Initiative called out Apple's role in certain child exploitation places.

In interviews ahead of the hearing, several parents and audience members noted they wished they would have seen Apple in the hearing room.

Linda Yaccarino said that the company is new and said it is "not the platform of choice for children and teens".

"As a mother, this is personal and I share this sense of urgency," she said adding X removes child sexual content and the accounts that post it.

She said that X suspended 12.4 million accounts violating these policies last year, compared to 2.3 million removed by its predecessor Twitter in 2022.

TikTok plans to "invest more than $2 billion in trust and safety efforts" in 2024, CEO Shou Zi Chew said.

A significant part of that investment will be in the platform's US operations.

"TikTok is vigilant about enforcing its 13-and-up age policy and offers an experience for teens that is much more restrictive than you and I would have as adults," Chew said, noting that safety is one of the platform's core priorities.

When outlining the safeguards available on TikTok, Chew said: "We didn't do them last week" -- a possible jab at other platforms testifying on Wednesday.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the platform works with law enforcement.

Even though pictures and videos expire on Snapchat, Spiegel said that doesn't mean the platform is not paying attention to what is being shared.

In 2023, Snap made 690,000 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which led to more than 1,000 arrests, according to Spiegel.

"When we take action on illegal or potentially harmful content, we also retain the evidence for an extended period, which allows us to support law enforcement and hold criminals accountable," he said.

Snap wants to be part of the solution, Spiegel said, adding that the platform is committed to acknowledging its shortcomings and working with lawmakers.

Discord CEO Jason Citron said in his opening statements that encryption on his platform would disrupt the platform's child safety efforts.

The statement touches on a hot-button issue in the tech community, balancing privacy via technologies like end-to-end encryption and the ability to assist law enforcement and do its own proactive scanning, NBC reported on the hearings.

Discord CEO says platform is about having fun with friends: In his opening remarks, Discord CEO Jason Citron shared how video games enriched his life as a kid, and how his platform aims to do that for other gamers.

"I've been playing video games since I was 5 years old. And as a kid, it's how I had fun and found friendship," he said.

"We built Discord so that anyone could build friendships playing video games from Minecraft to Wordle and everything in between." As a father of two, he said he wants Discord to be a platform his own kids "use and love, and I want them to be safe."

He emphasized that the platform has a "zero tolerance policy on child sexual abuse material".

Source: IANS