Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to families who claimed their children were harmed by social media during a hearing in the U.S. Senate.
According to Reuters, CEO Zuckerberg of Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, appeared before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on January 31 local time and apologized, saying, “No one should go through this,” in front of families who claimed their children suffered sexual exploitation, drugs and suicide because of social media.
In addition to Zuckerberg, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee called in five people, including TikTok CEO Shou Ji-Chu and CEOs of X (X, old Twitter), Snap, and Discord, to question what steps companies are taking to protect children and teenagers online.
Foreign media said the CEOs received nearly four hours of aggressive questions from senators from both parties.
TikTok CEO Shou Ji-Chu was asked if the company had shared data from U.S. users with the Chinese government, but denied it.
In the audience of the hearing, there were families who claimed that their children suffered sexual exploitation, suicide, and drug trafficking due to social media content.
After the hearing, some of them held rallies outside and urged Congress to urgently pass a bill holding businesses accountable.
The U.S. Congress is pending the “Child Online Safety Act” (KOSA), which strengthens corporate responsibility to protect children and teenagers from harmful content distributed on social media platforms.
In the United States, the number of online reports of sexual abuse of children reached an all-time high of 3.6 million last year.
Online child sexual exploitation mainly occurs on large social media platforms, and according to the Washington Post, more than 21 million reports were received in just one Meta as of 2022.
JULIE KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
