What you need to know as Big Tech executives defend social media safety on Capitol Hill

A group of social media bigwigs is currently being grilled by Congress on Wednesday about the risks their products pose to young people — yet again.

The chief executives of Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X, formerly known as Twitter, are testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee now.

Here are our main takeaways so far.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn confronted Zuckerberg on internal Meta documents suggesting that the company estimates the lifetime value of a teen user at $270.

“How could you possibly even have that thought? It is astounding to me,” Blackburn said, before recognizing a group of youth advocates in the audience and inviting them to stand.

When they did so, the advocates revealed that they were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “I am worth more than $270.”

“Children are not your priority. Children are your product,” Blackburn told Zuckerberg in the tense exchange.

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said Meta platforms have become a “killing field of information” where users “see only one side of an issue.”

“You have convinced over 2 billion people to give up all of their personal information — every bit of it — in exchange for getting to see what their high school friends had for dinner Saturday night,” he said.

“And you take this information, this abundance of personal information and then you develop algorithms to punch people’s hot buttons … again and again and again, to keep them coming back and to keep them staying longer. And as a result, your users see only one side of an issue, and so to some extent, your platform has become a killing field for the truth, isn’t it?”

Zuckerberg rejected this characterization of his business.

In this environment, Kennedy claimed, the platforms can become a “cesspool of snark.”

Asking if Facebook makes it clear to its users how their data is monetized by the platform, Kennedy said, “Does your user agreement still suck?”

This prompted some laughter in the room.

Zuckerberg said people get the basics of how social media works.

“You’re in the foothills of creepy. You track people who aren’t even Facebook users,” Kennedy said. “I just wonder if our technology is greater than our humanity in the interest of this funnel.”

In conclusion, Kennedy told Zuckerberg, “If you think that Instagram is not hurting millions of our young people, particularly young teens, particularly young women, you shouldn’t be driving.”

Zuckerberg, Spiegel personally apologize to families

Meta CEO Zuckerberg stood to apologize to the families in the hearing room.

“I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” he said. “No one should go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”

In response, Sen. Josh Hawley called on Zuckerberg, as a billionaire, to “compensate” the families whose children have been affected by his platforms.

In response to prompting from California Democrat Sen. Laphonza Butler, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel also apologized to families whose children have died after they purchased drugs on Snapchat.

“I’m so sorry that we have not been able to prevent these tragedies,” Spiegel said, before detailing some of the efforts the company takes to protect young users.

Lawmakers grill TikTok CEO on the platform’s connection to China

TikTok CEO Shou Chew was grilled several times on the company’s connection to China, via its parent company ByteDance, and the amount of access and influence the platform grants to the Chinese government.

In one instance, Chew told Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton that it was “a coincidence” that he was appointed CEO of the platform a day after the Chinese Communist Party’s China internet investment fund bought a 1% stake in ByteDance’s main Chinese subsidiary, getting a seat on the board of the subsidiary.

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley also questioned Chew about the company’s connections to China and its communist party.

In another instance, under questioning from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Chew described the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing as a “massive protest.”

While Chew’s characterization of the event is accurate, it omits the subsequent bloody crackdown against pro-democracy activists by the Chinese government that today is heavily censored on the Chinese internet. In later testimony, Chew did refer to Tianamen Square as a massacre when pressed.

Chew has previously testified to Congress that TikTok allows content about Tiananmen Square on its platform. TikTok does not operate within China. But its parent company, ByteDance, distributes a substantially similar app known as Douyin.

Social media companies have created products that have an upside, but they also have a dark side that is “too great to live with,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday while grilling chief executives of four such companies.

Until social media companies are sued for the damage they are doing, Graham warned that there will be no change.

“I am tired of talking. I’m tired of having discussions,” he said. “Open up the courthouse door. Until you do that, nothing will change. Until these people can be sued for the damage they’re doing, it is all talk.”

He added, “I’m a Republican who believes in free enterprise, but I also believe that every American who’s been wronged has to have somebody to go to to complain. There is no commission to go to that can punish you. There’s not one law in the book because you oppose everything we do, and you can’t be sued. That has to stop, folks.”

Graham stressed on the importance of having legal framework to hold the companies accountable.

“Because for all the upside, the dark side is too great to live with,” he said.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar got visibly upset while questioning CEOs

There have elements of theater during Wednesday’s hearing.

Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar appeared visibly upset as she recounted the stories of parents whose children were harmed by social media platforms, including young people who committed suicide after being threatened by predators online.

“I’m so tired of this,” Klobuchar said. “It’s been 28 years … since the start of the internet. We haven’t passed any of these bills, because everyone’s ‘double talk, double talk.’ It’s time to actually pass them.”

Klobuchar pressed the CEOs to endorse several proposed bills.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel agreed to endorse the Cooper Davis Act, which would require platforms to report certain instances of illicit drug trafficking on their platforms to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Wednesday’s hearing again demonstrates the breadth of criticism for social media companies among lawmakers, a rare bipartisan topic on Capitol Hill.

In an early instance, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham highlighted how he has “almost nothing in common” with his Democratic colleague Sen. Elizabeth Warren and how he has a different political philosophy from Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin. However, he noted that they agree on the issues of how tech is affecting society.

“Elizabeth and I see an abuse here that needs to be dealt with. Sen. Durbin and I have different political philosophies, but I appreciate what you’ve done on this committee. You’ve been a great partner. To all my Democratic colleagues, thank you very, very much. To my Republican colleagues, thank you all very, very much,” Sen. Graham said.

Despite both parties’ appetite for going after tech platforms, however, Congress has yet to pass meaningful legislation to regulate social media companies.

Most of the action has taken place in state legislatures and in the courts, which have become battlegrounds for new policies including age minimums for social media.

A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

In his opening remarks, Sen. Graham mentioned a state lawmaker who lost his eldest son and who is now suing Meta. That lawmaker is South Carolina state house Rep. Brandon Guffey.

About two weeks after his oldest son’s funeral, Guffey says he received a private Instagram message with a laughing emoji.

Gavin Guffey, 17, fatally shot himself in a bathroom in July 2022, and the grieving father was searching for clues on what led to his suicide.

Then Guffey and his younger son began to get messages demanding money in exchange for nude photos of his late son. Anyone on Gavin’s Instagram followers list who had the last name Guffey got similar messages, his father says.

‘You have blood on your hands’: Sen. Graham says to tech CEOs

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told tech CEOs in his opening remarks, “You have blood on your hands.”

It triggered an applause and cheers from many in the audience.

“You have a product that’s killing people … You can’t be sued, you should be!” Graham added. “It is now time to repeal Section 230.”

Section 230 is the federal law that immunizes websites and social media platforms for their content moderation decisions and from lawsuits arising from user-generated content.

Wednesday hearing gets contentious

Congress has done little to rein in the industry in recent years, even as consumer groups say social media puts young users at risk of everything from depression to bullying to sexual abuse.

But lawmakers now cite a growing procession of whistleblowers, consumer lawsuits and new state legislation around the country to argue this time is different.

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