- Congress is about to grill leaders from Meta, X, TikTok, and different tech firms in a listening to Wednesday.
- The session will cowl efforts to guard kids from sexual exploitation on-line.
- This can be X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s first time testifying earlier than Congress.
Tech leaders are arriving in Washington, DC, voluntarily or not, to reply for his or her platforms’ efforts to shield youngsters from sexual exploitation.
The listening to Wednesday in entrance of the Senate Judiciary Committee got here collectively after three of the tech firms — Snap, Discord, and X — had been issued subpoenas to testify.
This can be X CEO Linda Yaccarino‘s first time testifying earlier than lawmakers — a process that is develop into a ceremony of passage for social media firms in sizzling water over digital safety.
Yaccarino, who took over as CEO of X from Elon Musk final June, arrived in DC early to fulfill with a number of committee members forward of the listening to, sources informed Axios.
She’ll be joined on the 10 a.m. ET listening to by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
The committee can be grilling the CEOs on on-line security for youths as lawmakers push forward on laws geared towards extra digital protections.
The listening to comes as studies pile up on social media firms’ shortcomings in defending youngsters and pictures of them from predators.
For instance, a June 2023 investigation by The Wall Road Journal discovered that Instagram promoted networks of pedophiles promoting underage intercourse photographs. In response, Meta informed the Journal that it had arrange a process drive to deal with its enforcement issues: “Little one exploitation is a horrific crime,” the corporate informed the Journal. “We’re constantly investigating methods to actively defend towards this habits.”
One other instance that will come up on the listening to is the prevalence of kid porn on X — even after former head Elon Musk himself tweeted that “eradicating little one exploitation is precedence #1” — in response to a 2023 report from The New York Occasions. A consultant from the corporate informed the Occasions that the corporate was bringing on new staff to deal with the problems raised by the investigation.
Over the weekend, X introduced plans to rent 100 full-time staff for a yet-to-be-opened content material moderation hub in Austin geared toward addressing little one sexual exploitation on its platform.
