Dick Durbin (03:56:00):
Senator from Tennessee.
Senator Blackburn (03:56:02):
Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you to each of you for coming and I know some of you had to be subpoenaed to get here, but we do appreciate that you all are here. Mr. Chew, I want to come to you first. We’ve heard that you’re looking at putting a headquarters in Nashville and likewise in Silicon Valley and Seattle, and what you’re going to find probably is that the welcome mat is not going to be rolled out for you in Nashville like it would be in California.
(03:56:33)
There are a lot of people in Tennessee that are very concerned about the way TikTok is basically building dossiers on our kids the way they are building those on their Virtual You and also that that information is held in China, in Beijing as you responded to Senator Blumenthal and I last year in reference to that question. And we also know that a major music label yesterday said they were pulling all of their content off your site because of your issues on payment, on artificial intelligence and because of the negative impact on our kids’ mental health. So we will see how that progresses.
(03:57:23)
Mr. Zuckerberg, I want to come to you. We have just had Senator Blumenthal and I of course have had some internal documents in emails that have come our way. One of the things that really concerned me is that you referred to your young users in terms of their lifetime value of it being roughly $270 per teenager.
(03:57:50)
And each of you should be looking at these kids, their T-shirts they’re wearing today say, “I’m worth more than $270.” We’ve got some standing up in those T-shirts. And some of the children from our state, some of the children, the parents that we have worked with just to think whether it is Becca Schmidt, David Molik, Sarah Flat, Anna Lee Short, would you say that life is only worth $270? What could possibly lead you?
(03:58:42)
I mean, I listened to that. I know you’re a dad. I’m mom, I’m a grandmom, and how could you possibly even have that thought? It is astounding to me, and I think this is one of the reasons that 42 states are now suing you because of features that they consider to be addictive that you are pushing forward.
(03:59:12)
And in the emails that we’ve got from 2021 that go from August to November, there is the staff plan that is being discussed in Antigan Davis, Nick Clegg, Cheryl Sandberg, Chris Cox, Alex Schultz, Adam Messeri, are all on this chain of emails on the wellbeing plan. A.
(03:59:32)
Nd then we get to one, Nick did email Mark for emphasis to emphasize his support for the package, but it sounds like it lost out to various other pressures and priorities. See, this is what bothers us. Children are not your priority. Children are your product. Children you see as a way to make money and protecting children in this virtual space.
(04:00:07)
You made a conscious decision even though Nick Clegg and others were going through the process of saying, this is what we do. These documents are really illuminating. And it just shows me that growing this business, expanding your revenue, what you were going to put on those quarterly filings, that was the priority. The children were not. It’s very clear.
(04:00:46)
I want to talk with you about the pedophile ring because that came up earlier and the Wall Street Journal reported on that. And one of the things that we found out was after that became evident, then you didn’t take that content down and it was content that showed that teens were for sell and were offering themselves to older men. And you didn’t take it down because it didn’t violate your community standards.
(04:01:15)
Do you know how often a child is bought or sold for sex in this country? Every two minutes. Every two minutes a child is bought or sold for sex. That’s not my stat. That is a TBI stat. Now finally, this content was taken down after a congressional staffer went to Meta’s Global Head of Safety. So would you please explain to me and to all these parents why explicit predatory content does not violate your platform’s terms of service or your community standards?
Zuckerberg (04:02:00):
Sure, Senator. Let me try to address all of the things that you just said. It does violate our standards. We work very hard to take it down.
Senator Blackburn (04:02:06):
Didn’t take it down.
Zuckerberg (04:02:08):
Well, we’ve reported, I think it’s more than 26 million examples of this kind of content.
Senator Blackburn (04:02:13):
Didn’t take it down until a congressional staffer brought it up.
Zuckerberg (04:02:16):
It may be that in this case we made a mistake and missed something.
Senator Blackburn (04:02:19):
I think you make a lot of mistake so let’s move on.
Zuckerberg (04:02:21):
But have leading teams that identify more than-
Senator Blackburn (04:02:23):
I want to talk with you about your Instagram Creators Program and about the push. We found out through these documents that you actually are pushing forward because you want to bring kids in early. You see these younger teen ages as valuable, but an untapped audience quoting from the emails and suggesting teens are actually household influencers to bring their younger siblings into your platform, into Instagram. Now, how can you ensure that Instagram Creators your product, your program does not facilitate illegal activities when you fail to remove content pertaining to the sale of miners? And it is happening once every two minutes in this country.
Zuckerberg (04:03:22):
Senator, our tools for identifying that kind of content are industry leading. That doesn’t mean we’re perfect. There are definitely issues that we have, but we continue to invest a tone in it.
Senator Blackburn (04:03:33):
Mr. Zuckerberg, yes, there are a lot that is slipping through. It appears that you’re trying to be the premier sex trafficking site-
Zuckerberg (04:03:39):
Of course not, Senator.
Senator Blackburn (04:03:39):
… in this country.
Zuckerberg (04:03:39):
Senator, that’s ridiculous. Senator.
Senator Blackburn (04:03:41):
No, it is not ridiculous. You want to turn around and tell these people that-
Zuckerberg (04:03:44):
Of course we don’t want this content on our platforms and we-
Senator Blackburn (04:03:46):
Why don’t you take it down?
Zuckerberg (04:03:47):
We do take it down.
Senator Blackburn (04:03:48):
We are here discussing. We need you all to work with us.
Zuckerberg (04:03:51):
We do more work to take it down than-
Senator Blackburn (04:03:53):
No, you are not. You are not. And the problem is we’ve been working on this… Senator Welch’s over there. We’ve been working on this stuff for a decade. You have an army of lawyers and lobbyists that have fought us on this every step of the way. You work with NetChoice, the Cato Institute, Taxpayers Protection Alliance and Chamber of Progress to actually fight our bipartisan legislation to keep kids safe online. So are you going to stop funding these groups? Are you going to stop lobbying against this and come to the table and work with us? Yes or no?
Zuckerberg (04:04:34):
Senator, we have a-
Senator Blackburn (04:04:35):
Yes or no?
Zuckerberg (04:04:37):
Of course we’ll work with you on the legislation.
Senator Blackburn (04:04:39):
Okay, the door is open. We’ve got all these bills. You need to come to the table. Each and every one of you need to come to the table and you need to work with us. Kids are dying.
Dick Durbin (04:04:57):
Senator Welch.
Senator Welch (04:05:00):
I’m going to thank my colleague, Senator Blackburn for her decade of work on this. I actually have some optimism. There is a consensus today that didn’t exist, say 10 years ago, that there is a profound threat to children, to mental health, to safety. There’s not a dispute that was in debate before. That’s a starting point. Secondly, we’re identifying concrete things that can be done in four different areas. One is industry standards, two is legislation, three are the courts. And then four is a proposal that Senator Bennett, Senator Graham, myself and Senator Warren have to establish an agency, a governmental agency whose responsibility would be to engage in this on a systematic, regular basis with proper resources.
(04:06:07)
And I just want to go through those. I appreciate the industry standard decisions and steps that you’ve taken in your companies, but it’s not enough. And that’s what I think you’re hearing from my colleagues. For instance, where there are layoffs in it is in the trust and verify programs. That’s alarming because it looks like there is a reduction in emphasis on protecting things like you just added Ms. Yaccarino 100 employees in Texas in this category and how many did you have before?
Yaccarino (04:06:48):
The company is just coming through a significant restructuring. So we’ve increased the number of trust and safety employees and agents all over the world by at least 10% so far in the last 14 months. And we will continue to do so specifically in Austin, Texas.
Senator Welch (04:07:05):
All right, Mr. Zuckerberg, my understanding is there have been layoffs in that area as well. There’s added jobs there at Twitter, but at Meta, have there been reductions in that?
Zuckerberg (04:07:16):
There have been across the board, not really focused on that area. I think our investment is relatively consistent over the last couple of years. We invested almost $5 billion in this work last year and I think this year we’ll be on the same order of magnitude.
Senator Welch (04:07:30):
All right, another question that’s come up is when to the horror of a user of any of your platforms, somebody has an image on there that’s very compromising often of a sexual nature. Is there any reason in the world why a person who wants to take that down can’t have a very simple same day response to have it taken down? I’ll start with Twitter on that.
Yaccarino (04:07:59):
I’m sorry, Senator. I was taking notes. Could you repeat the question?
Senator Welch (04:08:03):
Well, there’s a lot of examples of a young person finding out about an image that is of them and really compromises them and actually can create suicidal thoughts and they want to call up or they want to send an email and say, take it down. I mean, why is it not possible for that to be responded to immediately?
Yaccarino (04:08:26):
Well, we all strive to take down any type of violative content or disturbing content immediately. At X, we have increased our capabilities with a two-step reporting process.
Senator Welch (04:08:39):
Shouldn’t that just be standard? If I’m a parent or I’m a kid and I want this down, shouldn’t there be methods in place where it comes down? You can see what the image is.
Zuckerberg (04:08:49):
Yes.
Senator Welch (04:08:50):
Mr. Zuckerberg.
Yaccarino (04:08:52):
Ecosystem wide standard would improve and actually enhance the experience for users at all our platforms.
Senator Welch (04:08:58):
All right.
Zuckerberg (04:08:59):
There actually is an organization that I think a number of the companies up here are a part of called Take It Down. It’s some technology that we and a few others build, but basically-
Senator Welch (04:09:08):
All right, you all are in favor of that because-
Zuckerberg (04:09:09):
Yeah, this should exist.
Senator Welch (04:09:10):
… that is going to give some peace of mind to people. All right? It really, really matters. I don’t have that much time. So we’ve talked about the legislation and Senator Whitehouse had asked you to get back with your position on section 230, which I’ll go to in a minute, but I would welcome each of you responding as to your company’s position on the bills that are under consideration in this hearing. All right? I’m just asking you to do that.
(04:09:41)
Third, the court, this big question of section 230, and today I’m pretty inspired by the presence of the parents who have turned their extraordinary grief into action and hope that other parents may not have to suffer what for them is a devastating, for everyone, a devastating loss.
(04:10:03)
Senator Whitehouse asked you all to get back very concretely about Section 230 and your position on that, but it’s an astonishing benefit that your industry has that no other industry has. They just don’t have to worry about being held accountable in court if they’re negligent. So you’ve got some explaining to do and I’m just reinforcing Senator Whitehouse’s request that you get back specifically about that.
(04:10:36)
And then finally, I want to ask about this notion. It’s this idea of a federal agency who’s resourced and whose job is to be dealing with public interest matters that are really affected by big tech. It’s extraordinary what has happened in our economy with technology and your companies represent innovation and success.
(04:11:02)
But just as when the railroads were ascendant and were in charge and ripping off farmers because of practices they were able to get away with just as when Wall Street was flying high, but there was no one regulating blue sky laws. We now have a whole new world in the economy. And Mr. Zuckerberg, I remember you testifying in the Energy and Commerce Committee and I asked you your position on the concept of a federal regulatory agency. My recollection is that you were positive about that. Is that still the case?
Zuckerberg (04:11:36):
I think it could be a reasonable solution. There are obviously pros and cons to doing that versus the normal, the current structure of having different regulatory agencies focused on specific issues, but because a lot of the things trade off against each other. Like one of the topics that we talked about today is encryption and that’s obviously really important for privacy and security, but-
Senator Welch (04:11:56):
Right. Can we just go down the line? I’m at the end, but thank you. Yaccarino.
Yaccarino (04:12:00):
Senator, I think the industry initiative to keep those conversations going would be something X would be very, very proactive about. If you think about our support of the Report Act, the SHIELD Act, the Stop CSAM Act, our support of the Project Safe Childhood Act, I think our intentions are clear to participate in SHIELD here.
Senator Welch (04:12:19):
Mr. Chew.
Chew (04:12:20):
Senator, we support national privacy legislation for example. So that sounds like a good idea. We just need to understand what it means.
Senator Welch (04:12:27):
All right, Mr. Spiegel.
Spiegel (04:12:30):
Senator, we’ll continue to work with your team and we’d certainly be open to exploring the right regulatory body for big technology.
Senator Welch (04:12:35):
But the idea of a regulatory body is something that you can see has merit.
Spiegel (04:12:41):
Yes, Senator.
Senator Welch (04:12:42):
And Mr. Stefan.
Stefan (04:12:44):
Yeah, we’re very open to working with you and our peers and anybody on helping make the internet a safer place. I think you mentioned this is not a one platform problem. So we do look to collaborate with other companies and with nonprofits in the government to make it safe for everybody.
Senator Welch (04:12:59):
Okay. I thank you all. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Dick Durbin (04:13:01):
Thank you, Senator Welch. Well, we’re going to conclude this hearing and thank you all for coming today. You probably have your scorecard out there. You’ve met at least 20 members of this committee and have your own impressions of their questioning approach and the like. But the one thing I want to make clear as chairman of this committee for the last three years is this was an extraordinary vote on an extraordinary issue.
(04:13:24)
A year ago, we passed five bills unanimously in this committee. You heard all the senators, every spot on the political spectrum was covered. Every single senator voted unanimously in favor of the five pieces of legislation we’ve discussed today. It ought to tell everyone who follows Capitol Hill and Washington a pretty stark message. We get it and we live it. As parents and grandparents we know what our daughters and sons and others are going through.
(04:13:56)
They cannot cope. They cannot handle this issue on their own. They’re counting on us as much as they’re counting on the industry to do the responsible thing. And some will leave with impressions of our witnesses and the companies they represent that you’re right as an American citizen, but you ought to also leave with the determination to keep the spotlight on us to do something. Not just to hold a hearing, bring out a good strong crowd of supporters for change, but to get something done. No excuses, no excuses. We’ve got to bring this to a vote.
(04:14:32)
What I found in my time in the House, in the Senate is that’s the moment of reckoning. Speech is not withstanding press releases and the like. The moment of reckoning is when we call a vote on these majors, it’s time to do that. I don’t believe there’s ever been a moment in America’s wonderful history when a business or industry has stepped up and said, regulate us. Put some legal limits on us. Businesses exist by and large to be profitable, and I think that we got to get behind that and say profitability at what cost.
(04:15:02)
Senator Kennedy, Republican colleague said, “Is our technology greater than our humanity?” I think that is a fundamental question that he asked. What I would add to it are our politics greater than technology? We’re going to find out. I want to thank a few people before we close up here. I’ve got several staffers who’ve worked so hard on this. Alexandra Gelber. Thank you very much, Alexandra. Jeff Hanson. Scott Jordan Hanson. Last point I’ll make Mr. Zuckerberg is just a little advice to you. I think your opening statement on mental health needs to be explained because I don’t think it makes any sense. There is an parent in this room who’s had a child that’s gone through an emotional experience like this that wouldn’t tell you and me, they changed right in front of my eyes. They changed. They hold themselves up in their room. They no longer reached out to their friends. They lost all interest in school. These are mental health consequences that I think come with the abuse of this, right? To have access to this technology. So I will jump, let’s see my colleague, do you want to say a word?
Speaker 18 (04:16:14):
I think it was a good hearing. I hope something positive comes from it. Thank you all for coming.
Dick Durbin (04:16:17):
The hearing record’s going to remain open for a week for statements and questions may be submitted by Senators by 5:00 PM on Wednesday. Once again, thanks to the witnesses for coming. The hearing stands adjourned.