In a fiery Senate hearing on ‘Big Tech and the online child sexual exploitations crises’, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a heartfelt apology after coming face-to-face with the parents of child victims who were exploited online via Instagram.
Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to victims’ families after exchange with Josh Hawley (youtube.com)
In this lawsuit, executives from top social media sites like Meta, X, Tik Tok, and other functionaries faced challenging interrogations from the Senate Judiciary committee.
The apology came from CEO of Meta after US Senate Judiciary committee member Josh Hawley pointed out for offering immediate apologies to the families present there, based on issues that led children to commit suicide or be socially exploited.
It is worth noting that while Zuckerberg and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew voluntarily agreed to testify, the heads of Snap, X (formerly Twitter), and messaging platform Discord initially refused and were sent government-issued subpoenas.
Ahead of the hearing, Meta announced a number of new safety measures, including making minors unable to receive messages on Instagram and Messenger from strangers as a default instead of an optional feature. Zuckerberg, who was the focus of the hearing, said that Meta said it had brought in “over 30 tools” to support a safe environment for teens online.
Meta is one of the largest online platforms, with more than 77% of Internet users, or about 3.59 billion people, active on at least one Meta platform as of 22 Jan 2024. This explains the focus on Meta, with a federal lawsuit playing out from dozens of states alleging that Facebook and Instagram intentionally created “psychologically manipulative” features to keep kids addicted and that it hid internal data that would reveal the platforms’ harm to young users.
