Google, Facebook, Twitter CEOs accused of cashing in at kids’ expense in heated hearing
Things got personal Thursday during a virtual Congressional hearing to elicit testimony about misinformation online from three of the world's most powerful CEOs, with lawmakers demanding to know what concerns Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai, had about social media’s impact on their own children.
The issue of protecting children’s welfare, and particularly mental health, emerged as a major theme at the hearing before the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which also featured Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, following recent reports that Facebook’s (FB) Instagram is developing a sister photo-sharing platform for children under the age of 13.
Facebook and Google’s (GOOG, GOOGL) YouTube have already rolled out sister products tailored to children.
“What do you say when one of your children doesn’t want to put their phone down?” Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA) asked Pichai, after accusing Google and Facebook of doing a “poor job” of keeping children under 13 off their platforms, and actively onboarding children onto their ecosystems using YouTube Kids, and Facebook’s Messenger Kids.
“The struggle is the same, and particularly through COVID it's been — it's been hard to moderate it,” Pichai said after earlier saying that he worries about the amount of time his kids spend online. “And I do take advantage of the parental controls and the digital well being tools so we can limit the time on their apps, and so we have provisions in place.”
‘You’re plotting your next frontier of growth’
Zuckerberg told the committee that his children — ages 3 and 5 — don’t use social media, and that his company was designing tools that would put parents in control.
“I think we've proven that that can be a good and safe experience, and I think that was one of the things that made us think that we should consider doing this for Instagram,” Zuckerberg said, explaining that Facebook was still thinking through how the service would work.
Twitter’s CEO also didn’t get a free pass from accounting how his platform is protecting children. Committee members repeatedly pushed the CEOs to answer accusations that their platforms are used to share exploitative images and videos of children. They were also questioned over the impact on the mental health of children who spend excessive time on their services, and why, in Facebook’s case, it’s creating a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13.
“You’re plotting your next frontier of growth,” Bill Johnson (R-OH) said. “Big Tech is essentially handing our children a lit cigarette and hoping they stay addicted for life,” Johnson added, comparing social media’s addictive qualities to Big Tobacco.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) hypothesized that an increase in teen suicide in her district could be directly linked to teen’s social media use, and pushed the trio of CEOs to answer if their companies had researched the impact of social media on younger users.
“Too much time on screens and social media is leading to loneliness and despair, and it seems to be an accepted truth in the tech industry. Because what we’re hearing today is that making money is more important,” Rodgers said.
Zuckerberg pushed back to the lines questioning saying that users who spend time online connecting with people are, in fact, less lonely.
The CEO of Google also faced a tough line of questioning over YouTube, which it owns, with Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) expressing concerns over YouTube’s advertisments targeting children. In 2019, Google and YouTube paid a record fine of $170 million to settle claims by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General that it collected children’s personal information without their parents' consent.
Pichai said YouTube had removed close to 1 million videos based on concerns over child safety, and complies with regulations.
“There are scenarios in which there could be family viewing, and today there are creators who create content oriented towards families, and as part of that there are advertisers which are interested in connecting with those users,” Pichai said.
No solutions on Section 230
Committee members also raised the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as a mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado and a recent shooting spree in Atlanta as evidence that social networks still aren’t doing enough to limit the spread of violent, extremist content.
For their parts, Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Pichai said they are continuing to work to tamp down such content and limit its spread across their networks.
Missing from the hearing were expected substantive debates over solutions for how to fix Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law passed in 1996. The law, which provides liability protection for websites and platforms that host user-generated content and allows sites to moderate that content, has been criticized by both Democrats and Republicans.
Many Democrats say it allows social media sites to host extremist content on their platforms without fear of repercussions, while Republicans contend it censors conservative voices.
Zuckerberg, Pichai, and Dorsey each offered their own takes on how to address the law, with Zuckerberg saying it should be tweaked for larger companies, Pichai calling for greater transparency into moderation, and Dorsey proposing an open-source social networking protocol. Committee members, however, didn’t offer much in the way of their own proposals.
Representatives also continued to fail to come to an agreement on what exactly it is that they so vehemently disagree with when it comes to Section 230. And while they raised important issues about the impact of social media on children, until lawmakers can explain their problem with the law, it will go unchanged.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance and former litigation attorney. Follow Alexis Keenan on Twitter @alexiskweed.
Got a tip? Email Daniel Howley at [email protected] over via encrypted mail at [email protected], and follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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