U.S. senators on Wednesday grilled leaders of the biggest social media companies and said Congress must quickly pass legislation, as one lawmaker accused the companies of having "blood on their hands" for failing to protect children from escalating threats of sexual predation on their platforms.
The hearing marks the latest effort by lawmakers to address the concerns of parents and mental health experts that social media companies put profits over guardrails that would ensure their platforms do not harm children.
"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," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, referring to Meta (META.O), opens new tab CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "You have a product that's killing people."
Zuckerberg testified along with X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap (SNAP.N), opens new tab CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
Senator Dick Durbin, the Judiciary Committee's Democratic chairman, cited statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children nonprofit group that showed skyrocketing growth in financial "sextortion," in which a predator tricks a minor into sending explicit photos and videos.
"This disturbing growth in child sexual exploitation is driven by one thing: changes in technology," Durbin said during the hearing.
As the hearing kicked off, the committee played a video in which children spoke about being victimized on social media.
"I was sexually exploited on Facebook," said one child in the video, who appeared in shadow.
In the hearing room, dozens of parents held pictures of their children who they said had been harmed due to social media. Some parents jeered Zuckerberg, whose company owns Facebook and Instagram, during his opening statement and shouted comments at other points during the hearing.
