Five of the most prominent chief executives in tech will face questions on Wednesday from a powerful Senate committee about an issue that has drawn rare bipartisan scrutiny: the dangers that children encounter online.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will grill the leaders of Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X on topics including the spread online of child sexual abuse material and the companies’ efforts to police it. They’ll also examine social media’s broader impact on children’s safety and mental health.
A growing chorus of lawmakers have recently called for measures to crack down on the spread of child sexual abuse material online and to hold the platforms responsible for protecting young people. The bipartisan backlash against the tech platforms has mounted after accusations that the companies knew they hosted underage users and that their products could be harmful.
Tech giants are facing mounting scrutiny on the issue globally. Several American states have passed legislation requiring social media services to verify their users’ ages or take other steps to protect young people, although they are facing legal challenges. Online safety laws have been approved in the European Union and in Britain.
In 2022, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 32 million reports of such material circulating on internet platforms and other sources. The images can continue to pop up online and haunt victims long after they are created.
“Parents and kids demand action,” Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, the committee’s Democratic chairman, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, its top Republican, said in a joint statement when the hearing was announced in November.
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