TRANSCRIPT
Those leading some of the world's most influential tech companies have faced tough questions during a United States Senate hearing.
The chief executives of social media companies Meta, X, TikTok, Snapchat, and Discord have had their efforts to combat online child sexual exploitation scrutinised.
As the hearing began, the committee played a video in which children spoke about being victimised on their social media platforms.
"I was sexually exploited on Facebook. I was sexually exploited on Instagram. I was sexually exploited on X. This is my daughter Olivia. This is our son Matthew. Look at how beautiful Maryam is. My son Riley died from suicide after being sexually exploited on Facebook. The child that gets exploited is never the same ever again."
Judiciary Committee Democratic chairman Senator Dick Durbin outlined statistics which found financial sextortion, when a predator tricks a minor into sending explicit photos or videos, had skyrocketed last year.
Senator Lindsey Graham told the tech company leaders they have blood on their hands.
"Mr Zuckerberg and the companies before us, I don't you don't mean for it to be so, but you have blood on your hands. You have a product, you have a product that's killing people. When we had cigarettes killing people, we did something about it, maybe not enough. You're going to talk about guns; we have the ATF [[Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives]] Nothing here. There's not a damn thing anybody can do about it. You can't be sued."
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to families for the impact social media has on children.
Under prodding from Republican Senator Josh Hawley, Mr Zuckerberg stood up and addressed families who held up pictures of their children who they say have been harmed by social media.
"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."
They were questioned for almost four hours by senators from both parties, in a rare opportunity for U-S senators to question tech leaders.
Senator Josh Hawley accused Mark Zuckerberg of prioritising making money over the safety of Meta’s users.
HAWLEY: "Have you compensated any of the victims, these girls? Have you compensated them?"
ZUCKERBERG: "I don't believe so."
HAWLEY: "Why not? Don't you think they deserve some compensation for what your platform has done? Help with counselling services? Help with dealing with the issues that your services cause?"
ZUCKERBERG: "Our job is to make sure that we build tools to help keep people safe."
HAWLEY: "Are you going to compensate them?"
ZUCKERBERG: "Senator, our job and what we take seriously is making sure that we build industry-leading tools to find harmful content and take it off the services."
HAWLEY: "To make money... to make money'"
ZUCKERBERG: "Build tools that empower parents."
The hearing has also marked the first appearance by TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew before U-S politicians since March when the Chinese-owned short video app company faced harsh questions.
"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. We make careful product design choices to help make our app inhospitable to those seeking to harm teens."
While the hearing mostly focused on the protection of children from online sexual exploitation, the senators used the opportunity to ask questions on a variety of topics.
TikTok's Mr Chew was asked whether his company shared U-S users' data with the Chinese government, which he denied.
The committee approved several bills last year, including one which would remove tech firms' immunity from civil and criminal liability under child sexual abuse material laws that was first proposed in 2020.
None has become law.
