Abigail Shimniok

Top executives at TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, Meta and X appeared before the Senate in a hearing on Jan. 31 to cover child sexual exploitation issues on their platforms.
Nearly three dozen states accused the social media giants of exposing teens to harmful content on their platforms, creating a mental health crisis and engaging in “deceptive and unlawful conduct,” causing the deaths of countless children.
Snapchat CEO, Evan Spiegel, Discord CEO, Jason Citron and X CEO, Linda Yaccarino were served subpoenas while Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew, attended voluntarily.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina stated, “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 that’s killing people.”
Both Zuckerberg and Chew stated they have spent billions in safety and security spending to prevent child sexual exploitation. Meta spent $20 billion in 2016 on these specific issues, and Tiktok spent more than $2 billion.
Many families of the children who have been harmed by social media were in attendance and cheered while Graham and other Senate panel members expressed bipartisan support for several bills regarding putting a stop to sexual, financial and drug-related abuse on online platforms. Many bills concerning this subject have already been approved in the past year.
Graham and Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., have introduced a specific bill aimed at eliminating blanket immunity from federal civil law concerning child sexual abuse material. Despite being approved in committee last year, the bill seems to be stalled in the legislative process and has been awaiting a floor vote for months.