CEOs of Meta and X to testify before US Senate

The Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of five social media applications including Meta and X to testify before the US Senate on child safety. Besides Meta and X, the chief executives of TikTok, Snap, and Discord will also testify on January 31, 2024.

The top tech CEOs will appear before the Senate during a hearing on the matter of online child exploitation. The Senate Judiciary Committee released a statement about it.

The CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord will testify before the US Senate on child safety https://t.co/fMW3phhiWg
— The Verge (@verge) November 29, 2023

According to the statement, the Senate will hear from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X CEO Linda Yaccarino. As well as TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, and Discord CEO Jason Citron.

Earlier, Senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham issued a court order on Nov 21 to Discord, Snap, and X after receiving repeated refusals to appear during several weeks of negotiations.

CEOs of Meta and X to testify before US Senate

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Meta and TikTok CEOs both agreed to speak voluntarily. According to senators, the session will allow the CEOs to testify about their failure to protect children online.

The upcoming hearing is part of a collaborative effort to tighten online child safety regulations. Several states have passed online safety legislation in the last year with the purpose of protecting children online. However, some argue that the bills are too broad and may cause more harm than benefit.

Utah signed a bill in March that requires teenagers to acquire parental approval before signing up for social media platforms. While Louisiana and Mississippi now require age verification to view content that seemed harmful to children like porn.

Despite opposition from privacy advocates, the US Senate Commerce Committee recently approved other child safety laws including the Kids Online Safety Act and COPPA 2.0.