Skip to main content

How to watch the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, Discord, Snap and X testify about child safety

The CEOs of five social media companies are headed to Washington to testify in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about child safety. The hearing will feature Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Chew, Discord CEO Jason Citron and X CEO Linda Yaccarino.

The group will face off with lawmakers over their record on child exploitation and their efforts to protect teens using their services. The hearings will be live streamed beginning at 10 AM ET on Wednesday, January 31.

Though there have been previous hearings dedicated to teen safety, Wednesday’s event will be the first time Congress has heard directly from Spiegel, Yaccarino and Citron. It’s also only the second appearance for TikTok’s Chew, who was grilled by lawmakers about the app’s safety record and ties to China last year.

Zuckerberg, of course, is well-practiced at these hearings by now. But he will likely face particular pressure from lawmakers following a number of allegations about Meta’s safety practices that have come out in recent months as the result of a lawsuit from 41 state attorneys general. Court documents from the suit allege that Meta turned a blind eye to children under 13 using its service, did little to stop adults from sexually harassing teens on Facebook and that Zuckerberg personally intervened to stop an effort to ban plastic surgery filters on Instagram.

As with previous hearings with tech CEOs, it’s unclear what meaningful policy changes might come from their testimony. Lawmakers have proposed a number of bills dealing with online safety and child exploitation, though none have been passed into law. However, there is growing bipartisan support for measures that would shield teens from algorithms and data gathering and implement parental consent requirements.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/jNSU7eg

from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/jNSU7eg
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Instagram accidentally reinstated Pornhub’s banned account

After years of on-and-off temporary suspensions, Instagram permanently banned Pornhub’s account in September. Then, for a short period of time this weekend, the account was reinstated. By Tuesday, it was permanently banned again. “This was done in error,” an Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch. “As we’ve said previously, we permanently disabled this Instagram account for repeatedly violating our policies.” Instagram’s content guidelines prohibit  nudity and sexual solicitation . A Pornhub spokesperson told TechCrunch, though, that they believe the adult streaming platform’s account did not violate any guidelines. Instagram has not commented on the exact reasoning for the ban, or which policies the account violated. It’s worrying from a moderation perspective if a permanently banned Instagram account can accidentally get switched back on. Pornhub told TechCrunch that its account even received a notice from Instagram, stating that its ban had been a mistake (that message itse...

Colorado police identified the serial killer who murdered 4 women 40 years ago after exhuming his body to analyze a DNA sample

A scientist examines computer images of DNA models. Getty Images Police in Colorado have cracked the cold cases of four women killed 40 years ago. Denver PD said genetic genealogy and DNA analysis helped them identify the serial killer. He had died by suicide in jail in 1981. DNA from his exhumed body matched evidence from the murders. Police in Colorado have cracked the code on four murder cases that went unsolved for 40 years, using DNA from the killer's exhumed body. The cases pertain to four women killed in the Denver metro area between 1978 and 1981. They were 33-year-old Madeleine Furey-Livaudais, 53-year-old Dolores Barajas, 27-year-old Gwendolyn Harris, and 17-year-old Antoinette Parks. The four women were stabbed to death. Denver Police Commander Matt Clark said in a press conference Friday that there was an "underlying sexual component" to the murders but didn't elaborate further. In 2009, a detective reviewed Parks' case and picked several p...

Gemini vs. ChatGPT: Which one planned my wedding better?

I was all about the wedding bells after getting engaged in June, but after seeing some of these wedding venue quotes, it’s more like alarm bells. "Ding-dong" has been remixed to "cha-ching" – and I need help. I don’t even know how to begin wedding planning. What are the first steps? What do I need to prioritize first? Which tasks are pressing – and which can wait a year or two? I decided to enlist the help of an AI assistant. Taking it one step further, I thought it’d be interesting to see which chatbot – Gemini Advanced or ChatGPT Plus (i.e., ChatGPT 4o) – is the better wedding planner. Gemini vs ChatGPT: Create a to-do list I’m planning on have my wedding in the summer of 2026 – sometime between August and September. Besides that, I don’t have anything else nailed down, so I asked both Gemini and ChatGPT to give me a to-do list based on the following prompt: “My wedding is between August 2026 and September 2026. Give me a to-do list of things to do for the...