16-year-old Carson Bride took his own life after receiving hundreds of threatening and sexually explicit messages from his classmates. Grace McComas died by suicide at the age of 15 after enduring torture from a young man who used social media to make her feel fearful and worthless, then drugged and assaulted her. . And an ordinary day for the Bogard family ended in tragedy when their 15-year-old son Mason tried to imitate the viral “choking challenge.”
There are countless other heartbreaking stories like this of children who have died or been seriously harmed on social media. We have heard immense grief from their families and resonant complaints about the dark and addictive rabbit holes into which these young people have been dragged.
Meta whistleblower Arturo Bejar's damning testimony reveals how Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, and other Meta executives bullied millions of teens within minutes of opening the app. It was confirmed that he had been personally warned that he was facing eating disorders, illegal drugs and sexual exploitation. One parent described it as “harmful content being dumped at our children.” Despite this evidence, Zuckerberg and Mehta took no action and covered up the evidence while raking in record profits.
An estimated 100,000 young people are harassed with sexually abusive material every day, according to a newly unedited 2021 Metaplatform internal presentation. 100,000 a day. Internal documents revealed in the New Mexico lawsuit state that Meta employees said that Meta's “People You May Know” algorithm intentionally links minors with potential predators. It describes how it was perceived. Still, they chose to ignore the original amendment recommendations.
Today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg will be asked to answer, along with the CEOs of Snap, TikTok, X and Discord, about their platforms' role in the online exploitation of children.
But we are already hearing empty promises from these companies to transform, with little action to follow. In the weeks leading up to this hearing, both companies are once again rushing to announce new safety features, an all-too-familiar PR strategy before Congressional hearings. In fact, its “new” safety features are being reused from past years.
The bottom line is that Big Tech companies have proven unable to govern themselves well, and it's time for Congress to intervene.
Over the past three years, we led five subcommittee hearings with social media companies and advocates on the dangers children face online and carefully crafted the bipartisan Online Safety for Kids Act. I've been doing it.
Our law has one goal. It's about ensuring children have a safe online environment by default. We do this by creating a duty of care for sites we recognize as catering to young audiences. Under the Kids Online Safety Act, online platforms will finally be held accountable for recklessly promoting suicide, bullying, eating disorders, substance abuse, and sexual exploitation. Put young people and parents back in the driver's seat by requiring tech companies to protect young people's privacy, disable addictive product features, and provide options to opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations It turns out.
This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. Support for the Kids Online Safety Act crosses partisan lines, with 92% of Democrats, 84% of Republicans, and 81% of independents supporting it. The bill has the support of hundreds of organizations and nearly half of the U.S. Senate. We welcomed hundreds of young people, parents, and advocates to the Capitol, and they all conveyed the same message. That means change is long overdue.
Parents want to protect their children, but they are understandably disappointed. After Mason Bogard's death, her mother told Us that she began searching for “choking challenge” videos on every platform and reported hundreds of them, in an effort to prevent further tragedies. But these videos remained online, and her concerns for the safety of other children were met with an auto-generated message that read, “The content reported does not violate our community guidelines.” It was done.
Big tech companies have made it clear that part of their business model is to treat underage users like adults and misuse their data at all costs. Meta calculated the lifetime profit for each teen user to be $270, as long as the teen continues to use the app. But children's well-being is worth more than $270, and reform of these companies' business models is long overdue. That's why 87 percent of Americans believe the president and Congress must take action.
Today, the Judiciary Committee will demand answers from tech company CEOs to a number of legitimate questions. But the most important answer comes in the form of moving quickly towards legally enforceable action, the Kids Online Safety Act, to ensure that Big Tech companies change their practices once and for all. It must come from Congress.
Richard Blumenthal is the senior senator from the state of Connecticut. Marsha Blackburn is Tennessee's senior senator.
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