On Jan. 31 at the Washington D.C. Senate hearing, “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis” CEOs of Meta, Discord, Snapchat, TikTok, and X were questioned on the security policies meant to protect children from harm on their respective social media platforms. Senators argued that the CEOs failed to regulate their apps, leaving youth without the proper protections they need on social media.
According to Legaljobs, “Suspected child sexual exploitation accounted for 29.3 million reports in 2021. It is 35% higher than 2020, making it an all-time high record.”
Child sexual exploitation such as sextortion and child pornography has always been a serious problem on social media. Still, the drastic increases within recent years, despite many measures to protect children, have led to a discussion at the Senate level.
This year, five bipartisan bills were passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee to help prevent online child exploitation, two notable ones being the STOP CSAM Act and the EARN IT Act. Judiciary Chair U.S. Senator Dick Durbin emphasized the STOP CSAM Act (Strengthening Transparency and Obligations to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment Act of 2023) and Senators specifically questioned the CEOs on whether they supported it or not.
“Do you support the CSAM Act?” Senator Lindsey Graham asked Jason Citron, CEO of Discord.
The Senators also urged the big tech companies to back these bills that would weaken Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which protects the tech industry from accountability for the damage it has caused, allowing users to sue the companies without any violations or restrictions.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, was the first of the group to support the STOP CSAM Act while the rest remained neutral.
Both Yaccarino and Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel mentioned that they support the Kids Online Safety Act which aimed to stop platforms from recommending harmful materials. The other CEOs continued to hesitate with their answers.
“We have worked for years with members of the committee on legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act and the Cooper Davis Act, which we are proud to support.” Spiegel said.
Several clips of the hearing went viral on social media platforms during the questioning of TikTok CEO Shou Chew and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Chew was repeatedly questioned about his nationality and whether or not he was affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party. This confused many including Chew because it wasn’t directly related to child exploitation leading them to direct it to racism.
Zuckerburg was questioned in a room filled with sexual exploitation victims and their families when he stated that he had not compensated victims in any form. He was then urged to apologize to the victims who his app had harmed.
“No one should go through the things your family have suffered, and this is why we invested so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts.” Zuckerberg said.
Through this hearing, Senators are hoping to help pave a path for Big Tech companies to prevent child exploitation and advance the five bills to the Senate floor voting.
