In an upcoming hearing at the U.S. Senate, key executives from five leading social media companies, namely Meta Platforms Inc. META, ByteDance-owned TikTok, Snap Inc. SNAP, Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and Discord, will testify on child exploitation issues.
What Happened: The Senate Judiciary Committee had confirmed a hearing on Jan. 31 next year, where the CEOs of these tech giants will discuss online child sexual exploitation.
After initial resistance from Discord and X, all five companies have agreed to cooperate, according to Senator Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the committee, and the ranking Republican, Lindsey Graham, reported Reuters.
This hearing marks the first appearance of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew before U.S. lawmakers since March, when the Chinese-owned short video app company was accused of harming children’s mental health.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, and Discord CEO Jason Citron are also set to testify.
The senators question the social media giants’ inability to protect children online.
“Big Tech’s failure to police itself at the expense of our kids cannot go unanswered,” said Durbin and Graham.
The committee has also previously approved several bills, including one that would remove tech firms’ immunity from civil and criminal liability under child sexual abuse material laws.
Why It Matters: This hearing comes amid growing concerns about the exploitation of children on social media platforms.
Earlier this month, Instagram faced backlash over alleged practices of suggesting sexualized content of minors to adult users.
This was shortly after a lawsuit was filed against Meta by 33 states, accusing the company of disregarding potential harm to young girls and not deactivating millions of underage accounts.
In July this year, Musk’s X reinstated a user who had been suspended for sharing child exploitation content, contrary to the platform’s zero-tolerance policy. This again ignited discussion about how safe children are on social media platforms.
Last year, Apple and Microsoft were accused by Australia of not doing enough to tackle child exploitation content on their platforms.
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This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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