Leaders from five social media platforms were admonished by U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday over their "failure” to protect kids online from sexual predators and mental health issues, and were pressed to support new legislation to impose controls.
The 21-member Senate Judiciary Committee called the chief executives of Meta, X, Snap, Discord and TikTok to Washington in an effort to hold them accountable for their platforms’ impact on teenagers and children.
"These companies must be reined in, or the worst is yet to come,” Senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the committee, said. Singling out Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Graham said he had "blood on his hands,” detailing a story of a child who was a victim of sexual exploitation. "You have a product that’s killing people,” he added. His comments were met with an uproar of applause and cheers from advocates in attendance in the packed hearing room.