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Zuckerberg apologises to families of social victims in US Senate: 'I'm sorry'

Hearing at the Justice Committee on the risks of social platforms for teenagers. Top management of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap and Discord heard

1 February 2024

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US senators heavily attacked the CEOs of Meta (Facebook, Instagram), X, TikTok, Snap and Discord by grilling them in a hearing before the Justice Committee on the risks of social platforms for children and adolescents, which took place on Wednesday 31 January.

"Your products are killing", "you have blood on your hands", "they are destroying lives and threatening democracy. These companies must be tamed and the worst is yet to come,' said the US politicians.

I big dei social network in audizione al Senato Usa

Zuckerberg's defence

Words greeted by applause from dozens of parents with photos of their dead or traumatised children on social media. Embarrassed, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the families and apologised.

"I am sorry for everything you have had to go through. No one should have to go through what you have gone through. That's why we've invested so much to ensure that others don't have to go through what you went through," he said, outlining the company's efforts: some 40,000 people in charge of online security, more than $20 billion spent since 2016 and two more planned for this year.

But the senators cited internal group documents according to which Zuckerberg refused to strengthen the teams in charge of detecting dangers to teenagers online.

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Tik Tok and X are also in the crosshairs

The CEO of Tik Tok, Shou Zi Chew, also emphasised the efforts to protect minors, with 40,000 employees and 2 billion investments planned for a platform that has over 170 million monthly users in the USA. But he too has come under fire for numerous incidents. Linda Yaccarino defended X (the former Twitter) by pointing out that it is not a platform chosen by young people and that a new department for content moderation will be created in any case.

Zuckerberg si scusa con le vittime di abusi online

The basic problem is that the measures regularly announced by online platforms are considered insufficient by observers and authorities. And that various bills to protect minors have been lying in Congress for some time, but so far none has been passed: the latest is that of Dem Senator Dick Durbin, chairman of the Justice Committee, which allows tech companies to be prosecuted for their child pornography content and victims to sue.