Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to families at online child safety hearing

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood up and apologized to families on Wednesday during a dramatic U.S. Senate hearing in which lawmakers grilled the tech giant about the dangers children face on social media platforms.

Tech giants are facing huge political anger from lawmakers who accuse them of not doing enough to curb the dangerous effects of social media on children, including sexual predators and the threat of teen suicide.

At the urging of Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, Zuckerberg stood, turned to families holding up photos of children they said had been harmed by social media, and addressed them.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through,” the Facebook founder said. “No one should have to go through what your family has been through.”

In addition to Zuckerberg, the CEOs of TikTok, X, Discord and Snap also faced hostile U.S. lawmakers at a conference titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.”

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you didn’t mean it, but you have blood on your hands. Your products are killing people,” Senator Lindsey Graham told CEOs .

Zuckerberg told the committee: “We work hard to provide parents and teenagers with support and controls to reduce potential harm. Keeping young people safe online has been a challenge since the advent of the internet, as criminals continue to develop their strategy, we must also constantly evolve our defenses.” In his opening remarks.

He added that, based on research, “overall” social media was not harmful to young people’s mental health.

“I don’t think it makes any sense,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, who presided over the meeting. He said there was “not a parent in this room who has ever had a child … that has not changed before their eyes” due to the “emotional experience” on social media.

Ahead of the testimony, Meta and X (formerly Twitter) announced new measures to examine the impact on young social media users.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said it would block direct messages sent to teenagers by strangers. By default, teens under 16 can now only be messaged or added to group chats by people they already follow or are connected to.

Meta has also tightened content restrictions for teens on Instagram and Facebook, making it harder for them to view posts discussing suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.