Child Safety Hearing: Senators Say Tech Platforms Hurt Children

CEO's from Meta, Snap, X, TikTok, and Discord testified in a contentious and emotional Senate hearing on child online safety. Lawmakers invoked the stories of online child abuse victims—many of whom sat directly behind the tech leaders—to issue a stunning rebuke to Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and other executives. Evan Spiegel, chief executive of Snap, and Linda Yaccarino, who leads X, both agreed to support the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, which would require online services like social media networks, video game sites and messaging apps to take “reasonable measures” to prevent harm—including online bullying, harassment, exploitation, anorexia, self-harm and predatory marketing—to minors who use their platforms. Several senators acknowledged the futility of their legislative response to date, despite a bipartisan consensus that the current laws don’t adequately address harms to children on the platforms.