Zuckerberg apologizes to parents of victims of child abuse on social networks

The executive director of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, apologized this Wednesday to a group of relatives who claim that their children were victims of sexual abuse because of the Internet, but denied that the use of social networks harm the mental health of minors.

This was said during a hearing in the United States Senate, in which the CEOs of Snap, X, Discord and TikTok also testified to analyze the actions that the technology giants take to stop child sexual abuse on their platforms.

Zuckerberg defended Goal of the accusations of abuse, pointing out that there is no scientific evidence that links the use of social networks with worse mental health.

“A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, which evaluated more than 300 studies, does not support the conclusion that social media causes changes in adolescent mental health.“, stated the Meta manager.

A statement that caused a stir among the public, in which there were relatives of victims of harassment on social networks, to whom Zuckerberg ended up publicly asking for forgiveness, at the request of the congressmen.

“I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through.“said the leader of Meta, who added that no one should have suffered this”terrible” situation.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham accused Zuckerberg arrest “hands stained with blood” because social networks are “dangerous products that are destroying lives and threatening democracy itself”.

In their interventions, the five witnesses recognized their responsibility in keeping their respective communities safe, which is why they were open to working on this issue and collaborating with legislators.

But when asked about their support for the bills that are being promoted, none of them responded clearly, so the congressmen punished their “deathly silence”.

“If we wait for these guys to solve the problem, we’re going to die waiting”Graham reproached.

On behalf of xits executive director, Linda Yaccarino, justified that “less than 1% of X users are between 13 and 17 years old”, so he moved away from the problem discussed.

For his part, the executive director of TikTokShou Chew, noted that “intends to invest more than US$2 billion this year alone” in safety and which has 40,000 professionals in this field, among whom there are specialists in child safety.

The executive director of DiscordJason Citron explained that they use Artificial Intelligence to detect criminals on their network and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said that, although the content of their application is deleted by default, copies remain recorded in case it is necessary.To be accountable”.

“If all this worked, we wouldn’t be here today.”concluded Democratic Senator Richard Durbin.

Congress has several child protection bills before it, such as the ‘Stop CSAM Act’, which aims to suppress the proliferation of child sexual abuse material online, support victims and increase responsibility of the platforms.