Lawmakers grill Big Tech executives, accusing them of failing to protect children

Amna Nawaz:

Senators grilled CEOs of top social media companies today in a hearing about child safety online that was emotional, heated and contentious. Lawmakers tried to get companies to back proposed legislation, but much of the hearing was focused on questions of accountability, including over the deaths of children.

Lisa Desjardins begins our coverage with this report.

Lisa Desjardins:

Before one word of testimony, a silent statement. Family members greeted tech CEOs by holding up photos of loved ones, children they say were harmed by social media.

Senators quickly voiced the sharp sentiment in the packed room.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC):

Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don't mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands. You have a product…

(Cheering and applause)

Sen. Lindsey Graham:

You have a product that's killing people.

Lisa Desjardins:

The CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snapchat and Discord arrived after some were issued subpoenas to defend their platforms against charges they don't do enough to protect kids.

Jason Citron, CEO, Discord:

We partner with nonprofits, law enforcement and our tech colleagues.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta:

We have built more than 30 different tools.

Evan Spiegel, Co-Founder, Snapchat:

We made 690,000 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Shou Zi Chew, CEO, TikTok:

We make careful product design choices.

Linda Yaccarino, CEO, X Corp:

X has zero tolerance towards any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation.

Lisa Desjardins:

To many parents, the dangers have only grown.

In 2023 alone, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says it received more than 36 million reports of sexual exploitation of children online. And families cite devastating bullying, body image problems, drug trafficking and suicides they see directly tied to social media.

But Congress has not passed any of the major bills to restrict the companies or hold them liable since the '90s. Frustrated senators are deeply skeptical of industry-led reform.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL):

Coincidentally, several of these companies implemented commonsense child safety improvements within the last week.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT):

What I'm trying to understand is, why it is that Instagram is only restricting — it's restricting access to sexually explicit content, but only for teens ages 13 to 15? Why not restrict it for 16- and 17-year-olds as well?

Mark Zuckerberg:

Senator, my understanding is that we don't allow sexually explicit content on the service for people of any age. The…

Sen. Mike Lee:

How is that going?

Lisa Desjardins:

The CEOs stressed they collectively employ thousands of people to monitor content and have forms of age limits, as well as other tools, to help protect kids.

Linda Yaccarino of X, formerly known as Twitter, echoed that her company is open to change, but wary of stifling legitimate content.

Linda Yaccarino:

Industry collaboration is imperative here. X believes that the freedom of speech and platform safety can and must coexist. We agree that now is the time to act with urgency.

Lisa Desjardins:

Senators, though, were out of patience and gave CEOs little time to respond, furiously saying they have heard enough.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):

For years, you have been coming in public and testifying under oath that there's absolutely no link, your product is wonderful, the science is nascent, full speed ahead, while internally you know full well your product is a disaster.

Lisa Desjardins:

That led to an extraordinary moment with tech powerhouse Zuckerberg.

Sen. Josh Hawley:

Would you like to apologize for what you have done to these good people?

(Applause)

(Crosstalk)

Mark Zuckerberg:

Everything you have all gone through, it's terrible. And no one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.

Lisa Desjardins:

Zuckerberg argued that his company is devoted to and leading in safety. When a senator said Instagram is harmful, he responded.

Mark Zuckerberg:

Senator, I disagree with that. That's not what the research shows on balance. That doesn't mean that individual people don't have issues and that there aren't things that we need to do to help provide the right tools for people.

Lisa Desjardins:

Much is at stake here. Senators on the committee are pushing for a half-dozen bills with new restrictions on social media companies, including an end to their protections from some lawsuits over content.

Despite bipartisan support, senators fumed that the companies are blocking change.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

We haven't passed any of these bills because everyone's double-talk, double-talk. It's time to actually pass them. And the reason they haven't passed is because of the power of your company.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):

We have been working on this stuff for a decade. You have an army of lawyers and lobbyists that have fought us on this every step of the way.

Lisa Desjardins:

A rare bipartisan hearing, with senators looking more for momentum than answers.

Sen. Richard Durbin:

No excuses. No excuses. We have got to bring this to a vote.

Lisa Desjardins:

But those future votes on the issue, like the Senate calendar, remain unclear.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.

Amna Nawaz:

As Lisa reported, many of those who attended today's hearing were parents who lost a child or whose child was injured.

I'm joined now by one of them, Christine McComas. Her daughter Grace died by suicide in 2012 after being bullied and threatened online.

Christine, thank you so much for being here, and let me say how very sorry we are for your loss.

You were in the hearing. You were actually holding up this picture of Grace during that hearing. I just want to ask you what you thought about the questions from lawmakers, about what you heard from the executives.

Christine McComas, Mother of Suicide Victim: Well, just being there is a long time coming, that, finally, people are understanding the dangers that are inherent in the platforms, the social media platforms.

And so the fact that we're having that hearing is wonderful. But then bring in all five of the biggest platforms that are hurting kids, it's frustrating to me that it's been so long, and it's been clear because of whistle-blowers coming forward that they have known that it's harmful and they have not made the changes that need to be made.

And, today, they were still not willing. The Kids Online Safety Act has to pass. It's urgently needed. And they need to get on board and join us.

Amna Nawaz:

Grace died as a result of the bullying and the threats online. Tell us what that means. And why do you think social media played a role in her death?

Christine McComas:

You know, she was a young teen. She was 14. And, actually, there was a drug-assisted sexual assault first followed by the bullying.

But the bullying was things like, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate you. I hope you see this and cry yourself to sleep and wake up and kill yourself. You might as well. You're just a lousy piece of — snitches should have their fingers cut off one by one while they watch their families burn.

And this is abnormal. This is — she was terrorized. And there was no way to make it stop. There was no way to get it taken down. And we — what KOSA would make dedicated reporting for a child that is in distress or in crisis and get things taken care of.

Amna Nawaz:

If KOSA had been in place, do you think Grace would still be alive today?

Christine McComas:

I believe that we would not be where we are today.

Amna Nawaz:

There are a number of groups, civil rights group included, who say this could restrict free speech, it chills encryption adoption, or it could even force platforms to gather more information on kids.

Do you see any of those as valid?

Christine McComas:

I know that I have heard those as well. And we have talked quite a bit with the bipartisan co-sponsors — or not co-sponsors, but the actual sponsors of the bill, Senator Blumenthal and Senator Blackburn.

And I know that they have been very careful to very strictly — they made changes that made more of the people happy that it's not going to do these things. They're not going to be collecting any more information. And I know that there were questions about LGBTQ kids having a chill on them being able to find things, but it doesn't restrict information.

It goes to the heart of how these platforms are designed and to make sure there are commonsense guardrails to stop things happening to children. They know that the whistle-blowers came forward and — from Facebook, two of them over the last couple of years, one very recently, and brought proof that their studies, internal studies that no one knew about proved that they knew that their products were hurting the kids and they chose not to do anything about it.

Amna Nawaz:

Christine, there's a new generation of kids who are growing up extremely online, a new generation of parents who are trying to figure out what to do about that, how to keep their kids safe.

What is your message to them today?

Christine McComas:

I'm with a group of parents. We just launched a Web site this week called Parents SOS. It stands for Parents for Safe Online Spaces.

All of the parents have lost children to different online harms. And so when I say that you could be the most engaged parent and not be able to protect them, I mean that. There are lots of bad actors, predators out there, from sextortion, which if your viewers don't know what sextortion is, they need to learn what sextortion is, because people are pretending to be someone of a child's age.

And they end up gaining their trust over time and then the minute that they send them any sort of intimate photo of themselves, it turns around immediately with extortion for money, threats to release that to everyone they know. And I met a couple of parents last night who, there was only six hours from the time that they got the picture, they said, we want $5,000 — and he's a kid.

And he doesn't have that. And there were six hours from the time this happened to the time that he died.

Amna Nawaz:

What do you want people to know about Grace?

Christine McComas:

She was a great kid. She literally was born happy, I mean, just bright blue eyes smiling all the time. And she grew into a really gregarious, happy kid who was kind and thoughtful and made us laugh every single day. She was very funny. She had a great sense of humor.

And she should still be here. But I am her voice now. So I don't want people to see me. I want people to see her. And I want changes to be made so nobody has to go through what we have been through.

Amna Nawaz:

Christine McComas, thank you so much for being here.

Christine McComas:

Thank you for having me.