There is a phrase that summarizes a fundamental right, so often repeated and violated: “We are all innocent until proven otherwise.”
Is Mark Zuckerberg guilty of a crime? The issue is neither far-fetched nor hypothetical in view of the session of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee that was held on Wednesday and where he was sentenced without trial in search of headlines.
The senators questioned for more than four hours five executive directors of as many online applications (Meta, TikTok, their sexual exploitation. Behind the images they spread, deep traumas and suicides are recorded, according to researchers and many parents, of whom there was a representation in the room.
There was fuel for everyone – the frivolity of Linda Yaccarino was remarkable, very much in the style of X’s master, Elon Musk – but Zuckerberg emerged as the punching bag on which to unleash all the rage of the legislators. They have been denouncing the situation for some time, repeatedly interrogating these elite executives (eighth appearance of the founder of Facebook), without being able to reach legislative agreements to stop the damage.
“There’s been a lot of talking at these hearings and throwing popcorn and things like that, and I just want to get this thing over with. “I’m tired of this,” lamented Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar in the face of the inability to offer solutions and the legal shield that prevents action against these platforms in the event of a complaint for damages. “Nothing will change if we don’t open the door to the courts of law,” Klobuchar insisted. “Money speaks much louder than we do here,” she concluded.
The fixation on Zuckerberg may lie in the great global success of the creation of what was called “the mother of all social networks.” Facebook, the seed of Meta, emerged in the Harvard dormitories precisely twenty years ago, already with an original sin. In reality it was an algorithm to classify colleagues, not precisely by their intelligence, and objectify them.
This supposed lack of scruples is what is attributed to him in his business when facing the problem of underage users. Although the issue was discussed, US congressmen began to focus on the damage that social platforms cause to children and adolescents starting in 2021, when a former Meta employee, Frances Haugen, leaked internal documents that raised alarm. These papers showed that the company knew that Instagram, another of its applications, was worsening body image problems among teenagers.
For the record and public record, Zuckerberg is not involved in any criminal case. Despite having several disputes (misinformation, use of private data), none are criminal.
But a final sentence is one thing and a bench sentence is another. And he became the target of serious accusations.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, you have blood on your hands,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. His party colleague, Josh Hawley, stressed that “your product is killing people.”
There was no shortage of voices that denounced these expressions as a true exercise in hypocrisy, or shamelessness.
These two senators are among those who, given the mortality of children due to weapons – the main proven cause of deaths among minors, more than car accidents –, send people to pray after these events. The manufacturers of rifles and pistols are never summoned to hearings nor are they ever heard to say that they have blood on their hands.
They find it less compromising and more lucrative, electorally speaking, to attack the technology magnates.
Those words from Senator Hawley are what motivated Zuckerberg, breaking protocol, to address the parents present, some with photos of their lost children, to apologize. “I am very sorry for everything you have been through. No one should suffer what their families have suffered and that is why we invest so much,” he stated.
This note of investment in prevention and the allusion to a study that supports that social networks do not influence mental disorders (contrary to many other investigations), meant that these parents were not moved by his confession.
“He had a gun to his head,” replied Deb Schmill, who was holding in her hands the photo of her daughter Becca, who died after taking fentanyl pills that she bought through social networks. “He has made elections in which he did not prioritize the safety of children and what we see today is the result,” he explained to journalists at the end of the day.
