Tech CEOs address child safety concerns before Congress

Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 2:40 PM

JEFF HORWITZ: I think we have-- like, right now, there is a push to get child safety legislation through. Obviously, the history of regulating social media companies out of Washington has been, shall we say, very limited as the senators themselves observed. And look, there's certainly some dramatic moments, and I think there's no question that people on both sides of the aisle are very angry with the company.

Unlike with previous hearings, say, about things involving politics, there was at least a little more of a consensus as to what the platforms would need to be doing better, namely investing more and being a little more thoughtful in their feature designs and perhaps giving up some of the usage that they-- that's kind of the lifeblood of the platforms in exchange for safety. That said, I think the specifics of some of the questioning-- there's long been a question as to whether or not the current Congress, particularly given it's the age of most of its members, is well-suited to this field of regulation. And I think that will still be outstanding.

JULIE HYMAN: I mean, at the same time, they see the effects, right, that these problems are having, I mean, when it struck by the fact that Zuckerberg said that science has not shown a causal link between social media and mental health outcomes among young people. So even if they don't know exactly how to fix the problem, it seems as though the they understand the scope of the problem, right? So what are the next steps here, I guess, if there even are any?

JEFF HORWITZ: Yeah. So Zuckerberg said that there was no like causal link on the population level. And that is I think a number of caveats already embedded to the statement. And as the senators noted, the best understanding inside Meta by Meta's own researchers was, in fact, that there are known instances and foreseeable instances in which the platforms could be expected to cause harm under certain circumstances.

That doesn't mean it's say it's a net negative for the world or that it's responsible for teen suicides, just that there are-- it's the company's own work at this point is pretty damning on a few fronts. And that stuff has been brought into the public and, obviously, by both attorneys general and the press.

Now what's next I think is the question of whether any of this stuff results in bills that get to a floor or get to the floor of the Senate. As the committee members themselves have noted, the legislations come out of committee before in unanimous fashion. It just hasn't ever received a vote. And that's something that the Senate leadership obviously has some control about. And likewise in the House.

So I don't know that there's certainty as to where this goes. But if there is going to be a place where Congress does decide to pass legislation regulating social media, this would be it.

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Tech CEOs address child safety concerns before Congress

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