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 must much of the hearing was focused on questions of accountability includin over the deaths of children Lisa de jardan begins our coverage with this report before one word of testimony a silent statement family members greeted Tech CEOs by holding a photos of loved ones children they say were harmed by social media Senators quickly voiced the sharp sentiment in the packed room 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 you have a product that's killing people the CEOs of meta X Tik Tok Snapchat and Discord arrived after some were issued subpoenas to defend their platforms against charges they don't do enough kids we partner with nonprofits law enforcement and our Tech colleagues we built more than 30 different tools we made 690,000 reports to the Nati Center for missing and exploited children we make c choices X has zero tolerance towards any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation to many parents the dangers have only grown in 2023 alone the national Center for missing and exploited children says it re than 36 million reports of sexual exploitation of Children online and families site 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 si '90s frustrated senators are deeply skeptical of industry-led Reform coincidentally several of these companies implemented Common Sense ch safety improvements within the last week what I'm trying to understand is is why it is that Instagram is um only restricting it's it's restricting access to to uh sexually explicit content but only U why not restrict it for 16 and 17 year olds as well uh Senator my understanding is that we don't allow sexually explicit content on on the service for an y age um the the um how was that going uh the CEOs stressed they collectively employ thousands of people to monitor content and have forums of age limits as well as other tools to help protect kids Linda yako of X formerly known as Twitter echoed that her company is open to change but wary of stifling legitimate content industry collaboration is imper 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 Senators though were out of patience and gave CEOs little time to respond furiously saying they have heard enough for years you've been coming in public and testifying under oa there's absolutely no link your produc is wonderful the science is n Full Speed Ahead while internally you know full well your product is a disaster that led to an extraordinary moment with tech Powerhouse Zuckerberg would you like to apologize for what you've done to these good pe I'm sorry for everything that you have all gone through it's terrib should have to go through the things that your families have have su Zuckerberg argued that his company is devoted to and leading in safety when a senator said Instagram is harmful he responded Senator I disagree with that that's not what the research shows on balance that doesn't mean that individual people don' that there aren't things that that we need to do to to help provide tools for people much is at stake here Senators on the committee are pushing for a half dozen bills with restrictions on social media co including an end to their protections from some lawsuits over content despit bipartisan support Senators fumed that the companies are blocking change we haven't passed of these bills because everyone's double talk double ta time to actually pass them and the reason they haven't passed is th e power of your company we've wo rking on this stuff for a ha ve an army of lawyers and lobbyists that have fought us on this every step of the way a rare bipartisan hearing with Senators looking more for momentum than answers no excuses no excuses we've got to bring this to a vote today but those future votes on the issue like t Senate calendar remain unclear for the PBS NewsHour I'm Lisa de jardan as Lisa reported many of those who attended today's hearing were parents who child or whose child was injured I'm joined Now by one of them Christine mccomus 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 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 abou executives well just being th long time coming that it you know it 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 um is wonderful but in all five of the biggest platforms that are H hurting kids um it's frustrating to me that it's been so long and it's been clear because of whistleblowers coming forward that they've known that it's harmful and they've not made the changes that need to be made and today the willing on the kids online safety act um has to pass it's urgently needed and um they need to get on board and and join us Grace died as a result of the bullying and the threats online tell u what that means why you think social media played a role in her death you know she was a a young teen she was 14 um and actually there's 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 then wake up and yourself you might as well you're just a lousy piece of um snitches their fingers cut off one by one while they watch their families burn and is abnormal this is she was terrorized and ther no way to make it stop there was no way to to get it taken down and we you know the what kosa would do would would make you know dedicated reporting for a child that is in distress or in crisis and and you know get things taken care of if kosa had been in place do you think Grace would still be a believe that we would not be wh are today you know there are a number of groups Civil Rights group included w say this could restrict Free Sp chills encryption adoption or it could even Force platforms to gather more information on kids do you see any of those as valid um I I know that I've heard those as well and um you know we have talked quite a bit um with the bipartisan co-sponsors or not co-sponsors but the actual sponsors of the bill um Senator Blumenthal and Senator Blackburn and I know that they have been very careful to um ve 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 information um and I know that there were questions about you know lgbtq kids having a chill on them bei able to find things but it doesn't restrict information it go heart of how these platforms are designed and to make sure there are common sense guard rails to to um you know stop things happening to children they know that the you know the whistleblowers 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 Christine there's a new generation of kids who are are growing online a new generation of ar e trying to figure out what to do about that how to keep their what is your message to them today I' with a group of parents we just launched a website this week called parents SOS stands for um parents for safe online spaces and 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 th um there are lots of Bad actors Predators out there um you know from sextortion which if if your viewers don't know what sextortion is they need to learn what sextortion is be you know people are pretending to be um someone a child's age and they end up gaining their trust every time and then the minute that they send them any sort of a intimate photo around immediately with um extortion for money threats to release that to everyone they know um and you know I met a a couple of parents last night who there was only 6 hours from the time that they got the picture they said we want $5,000 and he's you know he's a kid and he he doesn't have that and there were six hours from the time this happened to the time that he do you want people to know about Grace she was a great kid um 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 um you know she should still be here but I am her voice now so 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've been through Christine momz thank you so much for being here thank you for having me