Tech CEOs summoned to Congress for another hearing on social media’s risks for kids
Social media CEOs are once again being called to testify before the Senate in light of growing legal and public pressure to protect young users of their platforms.
The executives of Meta, Alphabet, TikTok and Snap have been invited to testify next month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a committee spokesperson confirmed Friday.
The hearing comes at an inflection point for social media, as court cases, bills and increased advocacy put increasing pressure on the tech companies behind these platforms to protect the children and teens who use them by making substantial changes to the way they operate.
“Americans are realizing more and more every day that they can’t trust the CEOs at the helm of these companies because they don’t prioritize our security,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the watchdog group The Tech Oversight Project. “If it feels like the pace is picking up, that’s because it is.”
The CEOs of Meta, TikTok,
The June 23 hearing is titled “Examining Tech Industry Practices and Their Implications for Users and Families: Is This Social Media’s Big Time for Tobacco?” The leaders were invited by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet and Google, owner of YouTube, Shou Zi Chew of TikTok and Evan Spiegel of Snap received the invitations for the next hearing. Meta declined to comment. Representatives for the other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
At a hearing Wednesday by the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, senators heard from advocates and experts on children’s social media use, including parents who have lost their children to social media-related harm.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said at the hearing, “I think it’s time for us, on a bipartisan basis, to call these CEOs back and ask them what’s happened in two years, talk to them about the losses that have occurred and ask them what they’re doing.”
Social media companies have disputed claims that they harm children’s mental health because of deliberate design choices that hook children to their platforms and fail to protect them from sexual predators and dangerous content. This year, several state and federal court cases are going to trial, and while the details of each case vary, they seek to hold companies accountable for what happens on their platforms.
Two court verdicts issued within days of each other in March held social media companies, and Meta in particular, responsible for harm caused to children using their services. A California jury determined that Meta and YouTube designed their platforms to attract young users without regard for their well-being. TikTok and Snap were also named as defendants in the case, but they reached a settlement before the trial began.
The day before the California verdict, a New Mexico jury determined that Meta knowingly harmed the mental health of children and concealed what he knew about child sexual exploitation on his platforms.
The date of the hearing is important to lawyers. In 2024, Senators Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced a resolution to designate June 23 as Social Media Harm Remembrance Day. The resolution encouraged “stakeholders in government, industry and community to take action to prevent social media-related harm.”
This day of remembrance was proposed by families who attribute the deaths of their children to the harm of social media. The mothers of Carson Bride and Alexander Neville, who both died on June 23, are spearheading the initiative. Carson committed suicide at 16 after severe cyberbullying, and Alex was 14 when a drug dealer connected with him on Snapchat and sold him the pill that killed him.
