Republican Senator Lindsey Graham refused to hold back during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, accusing Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of having “blood” on his hands. At the hearing, “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” there were heated discussions and a focus on the safety of young people.
Senator Lindsey Graham bluntly said, “Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, you have blood on your hands. You have a product that’s killing people.”
Further the Meta CEO added, “That’s terrible. I mean, no one should have to go through something like that.” When Graham inquired about Guffey’s capacity to sue Meta, Zuckerberg replied, “I think that they can sue us.”
Blame game
Zuckerberg said that the onus of verifying users’ ages to block underage use to apps should be on Apple and Google rather than social media businesses.
“My understanding is Apple and Google, or at least Apple, already requires parental consent when a child does a payment with an app. So it should be pretty trivial to pass a law that requires them to make it so that parents have control anytime a child downloads an app,” Meta CEO averred.
Section 230:
The federal legislation that gives tech platforms immunity for choices made about content moderation, Section 230, has to be reexamined, according to Senator Graham. The crowd responded favorably to Graham’s plea to abolish Section 230, cheering and applauding.
Remedial measures:
Weeks before the hearing, Meta launched a number of features and policies aimed at promoting kid safety. Among them are a “nighttime nudge,” a search term restriction expansion, default privacy settings for teenagers that have been adjusted, and a collaboration with the Center for Open Science to share data in a way that protects privacy.
