“They have blood on their hands”: US senators attack social networks for not protecting minors

“You and your companies, we know that is not your intention, but your hands are stained with blood.

“They make a product that kills people.”

The broadside launched by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in his speech, to the enthusiastic applause of the public, was just a preview of the hostility that awaited the CEOs of the largest social networks at this Wednesday's hearing in the Upper House of Congress. on the exploitation of minors on the Internet and the need to implement legislation against predators on these platforms.

Sexual predators are one of the big problems that children and adolescents face on social networks.

Others are the impossible standards of beauty and happiness;

depression, psychological and eating disorders;

the mechanisms of use and algorithms aimed at creating addiction, or cyberbullying, according to parents, specialized organizations and legislators, who accuse companies of not doing enough to protect minors and of lining their pockets thanks to this lack of control .

Summoned to the session of the Senate Judiciary Committee were Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, Facebook's parent company;

Linda Yaccarino, from X;

Shou Zi Chew, from TikTok;

Discord's Jason Citron and Snap's Evan Spiegel.

Behind them, the most hostile public possible: parents of children who were victims of online abuse and who ended up committing suicide due to the harassment they received on those platforms.

“These are families that have lost their children,” cried Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

“These are families from all over the country whose children have self-harmed, who have suffered from low self-esteem, who have been sold deadly pills on the internet… The Internet is a dangerous place for children, and its platforms are dangerous places for children.”

“There is no tool to hold companies accountable.

Instead, 'survivors' and their advocates are forced to plead with companies to put safety before profits,” Committee Chairman Dick Durbin demanded in his speech at the start of the session.

The Democratic parliamentarian cited data from the NGO National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which suggests that sexual blackmail known as “sextortion,” in which a predator tricks a minor into sending him explicit images, skyrocketed last year. past.

“This alarming growth in child sexual exploitation is encouraged by one thing: changes in technology,” Durbin noted.

None of those appearing received white-glove treatment.

But the main rhetorical slaps went to Zuckerberg, as head of Instagram, and Shou Zi Chew, who was asked for all kinds of explanations about the Chinese-owned company and the influence that Beijing exerts, or could exert, on its operation. .

One of the most dramatic moments of the hearing came immediately after the senators showed a video in which several children explained the trauma they experienced as victims of abuse and harassment on social networks.

Addressing Zuckerberg, Republican Senator Josh Hawley asked him: “Would you like to apologize right now to the victims harmed by your product?

They are here, live on television, do you want to apologize to them?”

The Facebook founder stood up and turned to the parents who were holding up photos of his deceased children.

“I'm sorry for everything you've been through.

“No one should have to suffer the things that their families have suffered, and that is why we invest so much and continue to undertake efforts across the sector to ensure that no one has to go through the things that their families have had to suffer,” Zuckerberg stated.

His words did not seem to calm the senators.

Texan Ted Cruz criticized the fact that Instagram alerts about possible illicit sexual content contained a button that allowed “viewing the content anyway.”

“Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell was he thinking?” the legislator questioned him, visibly indignant.

The executive's reply: "The basic science behind it is that when people search for something problematic, it often helps to not just block, but to direct them to something that might be useful in leading them to help."

To which Cruz replied that, while it is reasonable to include a button that offers information about why that search may be problematic, "in what universe is there a link to 'See Results Anyway'?"

And, again, Zuckerberg: “well, because we could be wrong.”

For his part, Chew returned to the Capitol for the first time in ten months.

In March of last year, in his first appearance before Congress, he was subjected to a wave of criticism and questions about the damage that TikTok, one of the most popular applications in the United States, may be causing to the mental health of adolescents. .

This time it wasn't much different.

“We made careful product design decisions to make our app inhospitable to those who want to harm teenagers,” said the Singaporean executive.

According to him, the company's guidelines prohibit any content that "puts teenagers at risk of exploitation, or any other harm, and we enforce those guidelines vigorously."

TikTok, one of the most popular and also most reviled applications in the United States, says it plans to invest nearly $2 billion in executing a plan for the protection of minors on its platform.

According to Chew, this social network has 170 million users in the US, twenty million more than it estimated ten months ago.

In 2009, barely half of U.S. adults used smartphones.

In 2012, half of teenagers were already on social networks.

Today, 95% of adolescents use one of these digital platforms.

And a third of boys between 13 and 17 years old admit to using them constantly.

At the same time, the number of young people who admit to suffering symptoms of depression has skyrocketed: 40% of high school students in the United States claim to have felt so low in spirit that sadness prevented them from carrying out their normal study or sports activities for at least a year. least two weeks, according to the latest edition of the biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey study, prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Psychologists also speak of an increase in cases of eating disorders, or of adolescents suffering from anxiety, and of an escalation in the number of minors arriving at the emergency room after having deliberately hurt themselves.

So far, the US Congress is handling several bills that seek to increase the protection of minors on social networks, although none have passed so far.

Something that senators like Democrat Amy Klobuchar attributed, at least in part, to the pressure exerted by large technology companies summoned to testify.

Klobuchar compared the lack of regulation in the sector to the rules that control other industries.

"When a Boeing plane lost a door in mid-flight several weeks ago, no one questioned the decision to ground the entire fleet of these planes... So, why don't we take similar measures with the same determination against the danger posed by these platforms, when we know that there are children dying?” the senator asked.

“It is time to approve measures.”

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