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The Gateway PunditJan 31
US Senate Questions Top Social Media Execs on Child Safety
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The Facts
Executives from the five leading social media companies Wednesday testified about child-safety protection measures on their respective platforms before the US Senate Judiciary Committee.
With the Chief Executive Officers of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord in front of his committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee chairman, in his opening remarks said the companies are "responsible for many of the dangers our children face online" and he criticized them for their "failures to adequately invest in trust and safety."
The Spin
Narrative A
Congratulations are due to the bipartisan group of senators who are taking on this issue and confronting these CEOs who are profiting off the exploitation of children. Wednesday’s hearing was a step in the right direction. Still, much more needs to be done to protect children from the dangers of social media exploitation because too often these platforms have placed profit above safety.
Narrative B
These CEOs are truly sorry for any harm their platforms have caused. Many families have dealt with unthinkable suffering, but as studies have been released to help better mitigate the harms, the platforms are doing what they can to implement controls and tools to make their sites as safe as possible. More will be done moving forward to provide security for kids and improve industry standards.
Nerd narrative
There's a 20% chance that TikTok will be sold to a US entity before 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.