Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and four other leaders of social media companies are defending their practices for safeguarding kids online in testimony before lawmakers on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg is touting his company’s child safety procedures and highlighting the positive aspects of using Facebook and Instagram before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
“As a result of Meta’s ongoing investment in the well-being of the people that use our services, teens and their parents now have over 30 tools, resources and features and we have protections to help keep teens safe and away from potentially harmful content or unwanted contact,” Meta said in a statement. “We have a robust central team overseeing youth well-being efforts across the company and have built technology and teams that can move quickly and efficiently to implement new improvements across specific apps.”
Meta spent $5 billion on safety and security in 2023 alone, according to the company.
An increasing number of lawmakers are urging measures to curtail the spread of child sexual abuse images online and to make the tech platforms accountable for safeguarding children.
“Big tech’s failure to protect our kids cannot go unanswered,” Senators Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said in a joint statement when the hearing was announced in November.
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