Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the parents of child abuse victims in a heated session of the US Congress

Executive President of Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Mark Zuckerbergapologized to families Wednesday at a US Senate hearing on the impact of social media on children..

The Facebook founder was questioned by a Republican senator Ted Cruzwho questioned Instagram’s policies to avoid content related to child sexual abuse.

“Instagram also shows these alert ads to individuals who were searching Content related to child abuse” Cruz said.

The Texas state senator explained that users receive a warning message that the results may contain images of child sexual abuse. Then, the person looking for that type of content is given two options displayed in the social network links: get help or view the search results anyway.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, what were you thinking?” Cruz claimed to the Meta president.

For his part, under pressure from Republican senators Josh HolleyZuckerberg stood up and addressed families with photos of their children who he said had been harmed by social media.

As the hearing began, the commission played a video in which children talked about bullying on social media platforms. Senators recounted stories of young men who took their own lives after sharing photos with sex predators and extorting money.

“Do you now want to apologize to the victims who were harmed by your product?” Hawley asked, noting that the hearing was televised live.

Zuckerberg stood up, turned around and addressed the families.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. “No one should have to go through what their families have to go through and that’s why we’ve invested so much and we’ll continue to make efforts across the industry to make sure no one has to go through what their families have to go through,” he said.

Hawley lashed out at Zuckerberg during the controversial verbal exchange. “Your product is killing people” Hawley told Zuckerberg, whose company owns social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.

“Mr Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know that’s not your intention, but you have blood on your hands. “You have a product that kills people,” Senator Lindsey Graham told the managers.

Besides Zuckerberg, Linda Yacarino from X, Shou Zi Chew from TikTok, Evan Spiegel from Snap, and Jason Citron from Discord appeared. To talk about the dangers of social networks for children and teenagers.

They are accused of not doing enough to limit the dangers of these platforms, such as sexual predators or teen suicide prevention.

“Big Tech End The online child sexual abuse crisis”, convened by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

TikTok’s Chew said he has three young children and knows all too well that these problems are “terrible and every parent’s nightmare.”

“I want to invest over $2 billion in trust and security. This year alone, we have 40,000 security professionals working on this issue,” Chew reported.

Meta also noted that 40,000 of its employees work in online security and that $20 billion has been invested since 2016 to make the platform more secure.

Before appearing, Meta and X announced new measures in anticipation of a heated session.

Metta said it will block direct messages sent by strangers to young teenagers.

Basically, now LMinors under the age of 16 can only receive messages or be added to group chats By people they already follow or are connected to.

Meta has also tightened content restrictions for teenagers on Instagram and Facebook, making it harder for them to see posts that talk about suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.

The senators cited internal Meta documents showing that Zuckerberg refused to promote teams dedicated to tracking online threats to teenagers.

““The hypocrisy is amazing.” Senator Richard Blumenthal told The New York Times.

The documents are part of a lawsuit against Meta by some 40 states that claim the company allows users under the age of 13 to enter Instagram, and that it only deactivates a portion of those accounts.

The lawsuits also accuse Meta of hiding internal studies that showed harm to Instagram and Facebook users.

Under US law, Web platforms are largely protected from legal liability for content shared on their sites.

Congressmen are in favor of establishing more regulations.

One bill, for example, seeks to protect children from algorithms that might trigger anxiety or depression.

Another proposal is to require social media platforms to verify the age of account holders and completely restrict access to children under 13.

X also announced last week that it was forming a team to address child sexual abuse content and other violations of the platform’s rules.

When Elon Musk first acquired Twitter in 2022, he made drastic staff cuts that decimated the company’s security teams.

“X believes that freedom of expression and platform security can and should coexist,” Yaccarino told the panel.

(With information from Reuters and AFP)