The chief executive officer CEO of Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg has been forced to apologise to the parents of children who killed themselves after being subjected to online sexual exploitation.
Zuckerberg made the apologies at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the safety of children online on Wednesday.
The CEO while speaking to the parents behind him at the request of Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said; “It’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered,”
“And this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”
The CEOs of the five major social media companies were grilled by the US senators. Dozens of mourning parents attended Wednesday’s Senate judiciary committee hearing, Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis, many of them holding photographs of the children who died after falling prey to abusers on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
Executives in attendance were Meta CEO Zuckerberg, Snap CEO Spiegel, X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
Members of Congress questioned them for four hours, in exchanges that became heated on several occasions.
At the beginning of the hearing, each CEO gave a speech that outlined their position on their company’s competence in protecting children online.
Zuckerberg drew criticism from the parents for using his opening remarks to deny any relationship between social media usage and declines in mental health.
“The existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health,” Zuckerberg told the crowded room
Lori Schott, a bereaved mother from Colorado, said she cried when she heard Zuckerberg’s comments.
“They lack a moral compass; it is profits over the kids. Where there’s money, there’s greed,” she said.
Schott’s daughter Annalee was 18 when she died by suicide. According to Schott, Analee’s mental health deteriorated after consuming content on depression, anxiety and suicide that was recommended to her on TikTok and Instagram.
“She even saw a live suicide on the ‘For You’ page on TikTok. You can’t unsee that. It ate at her internally,” said Schott.
In the culmination of a tense exchange, Josh Hawley, the Republican senator, invited Zuckerberg to apologise to the parents of victims in the audience, many of whom held photos of children they say died or suffered because of his platform. Zuckerberg stood up to face the families and offered his condolences.
| Vanguard
