The CEOs of five social media companies are headed to Washington to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on child safety. The hearing will feature Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Chew, Discord CEO Jason Citron and X CEO Linda Yaccarino.
The group will confront lawmakers about its child abuse records and efforts to protect the teenagers who use their services. There will be auditions It will start at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, January 31st.
While there have been previous hearings on juvenile safety, Wednesday’s event will be the first time Congress has heard directly from Spiegel, Yaccarino and Citron. It’s also only the second appearance of TikTok’s Chew, which has come under fire from lawmakers over the app’s security record and ties to China. .
Zuckerberg, of course, has had a good experience with these auditions so far. But it is likely to face particular pressure from lawmakers after a series of allegations have emerged in recent months about Meta’s security practices. From 41 state prosecutors. The lawsuit’s court documents allege that Meta turned into a to children under the age of 13 using its services, to prevent adults from sexually harassing teenagers on Facebook and Zuckerberg personally Stop trying to ban plastic surgery filters on Instagram.
As with previous hearings with tech CEOs, it’s unclear what meaningful policy changes might come from their testimony. Lawmakers have proposed a number of bills related to online safety and child exploitation, though none have been enacted into law. However, there is growth support for actions that will from algorithms and data collection and from enforcing parental consent requirements.
