The founder of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, and senior officials from other platforms, such as X, TikTok and Discord, have appeared before the US Senate to talk about child sexual exploitation on the networks. And, in theory, to analyze the actions that technology giants carry out to stop child sexual abuse on their platforms.
For years, several reports from organizations such as Save the Children have warned of the serious consequences of digital violence. Zuckenberg defended Meta against accusations of abuse, pointing out that there is no scientific evidence linking social media use to worse mental health. “A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, which evaluated more than 300 studies, does not support the conclusion that social networks cause changes in the mental health of adolescents,” said the director of the company of platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
The executive director of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, apologized this Wednesday to a group of relatives who claim that their children were victims of sexual abuse because of the Internet, but denied that the use of social networks harms the mental health of minors.
A statement that, according to EFE, caused a stir among the public, in which there were relatives of victims of harassment on social networks, to whom Zuckerberg ended up publicly asking for forgiveness, at the request of the congressmen. “I’m sorry for everything they’ve been through,” said the leader of Meta, who added that no one should have suffered this “terrible” situation.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham accused Zuckerberg of having “blood on his hands” because social networks are “dangerous products that are destroying lives and threatening democracy itself.”
In their interventions, the five witnesses recognized their responsibility in keeping their respective communities safe, which is why they were open to working on this issue and collaborating with legislators.
But when asked about their support for the bills that are being promoted, none of them responded clearly, so the congressmen punished their “sepulchral silence.” “If we wait for these guys to solve the problem, we’re going to die waiting,” Graham reproached.
On behalf of X, its executive director, Linda Yaccarino, justified that “less than 1% of
For his part, TikTok CEO Shou Chew noted that “it intends to invest more than $2 billion this year alone” in security and that it has 40,000 professionals in this field, including security specialists. childish.
Discord CEO Jason Citron explained that they use Artificial Intelligence to detect criminals on their network, and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said that, even if the content of their application is deleted by default, copies remain recorded in case “accountability” is needed.
“If all this worked, we wouldn’t be here today,” concluded Democratic Senator Richard Durbin.
Congress has several child protection bills before it, such as the ‘Stop CSAM Act’, which aims to suppress the proliferation of child sexual abuse material online, support victims and increase responsibility of the platforms.
