Multiple tech CEO's testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss social media regulation and address concerns around the safety of children and younger users. During the hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (META) claiming that he, and the other companies represented at the hearing, "have blood on your hands."
While there are some protections in place, many argue that social media platforms need to do more to implement policies that protect children, while others say it is up to the government to act and put in proper legislation.
Matt Perault, UNC Tech Policy Professor and Former Facebook Public Policy Director, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss social media executives testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the massive undertaking that is involved in regulating social media.
Perault comments on what could be done to help: "The question about solutions is a really, really hard one. This is an issue I think where there's a lot of unity amongst parents and amongst lawmakers that there is a challenge that we should address in some form. And as a parent, I feel a lot of sympathy with that perspective. I think the question is, how do we do it in a way that is respective of kids' rights to free expression and respective of kids' privacy? That is really difficult to do in practice. It's extremely difficult..."
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RACHELLE AKUFFO: And, Matt, we know that a number of different companies' CEOs, from X, from TikTok, Snap, Discord-- but, of course, Meta getting the bulk of the attention because of the being sued by 33 states. But with that in mind, then, when you don't have any set federal regulations that really cover everything, and you have this sort of piecemeal approach from states, how difficult does that make it for something like social media, which is, essentially, borderless?
MATT PERAULT: Well, so I think that's yet to be seen. I mean, first of all, there are 13 states that have passed legislation in this area, but that leaves a large number of states that have not. And so in those other states, there currently are no on-the-books protections in this area, at least explicitly related to online child safety. And I think you're right to point to the possibility of a patchwork of rules across states.
And that's not good, I don't think, for companies that have to deal with lots of different compliance regimes. But it's also not good for users. I live in North Carolina. I have kids in North Carolina. The rights that I have as a parent and the rights that my kids have as potential users at some point of social media-- I don't think they should change when we drive from North Carolina to Virginia and we cross the border.
AKIKO FUJITA: Matt, you mentioned the legislation we've seen at the state level. They range from setting a minimum age for some of these platforms to requiring parental consent. Are there any in particular that you have seen at the state level that you think have a lot of muscle in addressing this very issue about child exploitation?
MATT PERAULT: So the question about solutions is a really, really hard one. This is an issue, I think, where there is a lot of unity amongst parents and amongst lawmakers that there is a challenge that we should address in some form. And as a parent, I feel a lot of sympathy with that perspective. I think the question is, how do we do it in a way that is respective of kids' rights to free expression and respect of kids' privacy?
And that is really difficult to do in practice. It's extremely difficult. If you just take the baseline issue of in order to protect children, we need to know who is a child-- that's actually really difficult to do in practice. You can do things like require individuals to submit identification, but that, then, means that social media companies are collecting a lot more data about who their users are, including, potentially, collecting sensitive data like actual identification.
And so even that baseline issue of just figuring out how do we identify who's a kid and who's not is really challenging. And so that's why I don't envy the position that lawmakers are in, where there's just an acute interest in addressing this issue. But the solutions are really, really difficult.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: And we did hear ranking member, Senator Graham, talking about Section 230, which, essentially, protects social media companies from getting sued from some of the content that users post online. Now, that came out in 1996 when about 40 million people were using the internet-- currently looking at about five billion people online.
So in terms of the progression of how some of these social media companies have evolved, is, perhaps, revoking or adjusting Section 230 the way to do it? Because we are seeing this unwillingness to really self regulate in a way that's making a meaningful difference, especially when it comes to the mental health of children.
MATT PERAULT: Yeah. So I think Section 230 is actually really important here in providing some of the protections that I think lawmakers want. I mean, first of all, it protects individual-- it makes it less likely that social media companies will censor users. And that's an issue that's really important to conservatives.
And it also really makes explicit that social media companies have the ability to moderate content on their platform. And that's an issue that's particularly of interest to Democrats who want to make sure that tech companies take action to address harmful content. So I think social media-- I think Section 230 is likely more part of the solution than part of the problem.
Our center at UNC has partnered with Lawfare and Slate to publish a list of all the 230 proposals that have been introduced in Congress over the last couple of years. And so if anybody wants to check that out, they can go to that website just to see the catalog of different approaches that lawmakers have used. I think the thing that is a little bit challenging in the discussions in this area is that lawmakers beat the drum on this, but they don't actually take action. And again, we're in an election year. So don't think that's likely we're likely to see much action in the coming months.