US senators have urgently invited the CEOs of five of the major social media giants to testify about their failure to protect children online.
In a press release, the US senate committee on the judiciary announced that the Committee's previously announced hearing on online child sexual exploitation has been rescheduled for January 31, 2024 and will feature testimony from the CEOs.
An earlier hearing on Tuesday, February 14, 2023, included only consumer advocates as witnesses, and no industry representatives.
The CEOs of X, Discord, and Snap will testify after subpoenas were issued by the Committee, following repeated refusals by the three leaders to testify.
The CEOs of Meta and TikTok voluntarily agreed to testify at the hearing.
The hearing comes as part of a bipartisan effort to protect children online.
To that end, several online safety bills across multiple states have gone into effect.
On the other hand, a federal judge has blocked a Texas law requiring age verification and a health warning for viewing pornographic websites, a day before the law was set to take effect.
They focused on the importance of holding platforms liable for failure to enforce their own terms, and discussed imposing a duty of care on online platforms.
So now seems to be the time that the CEOs of the major platforms will be forced to explain what they have done in the past and how they plan to do better in the future.
When it comes to internet safety for kids and teens, the best approach is for parents and carers to be involved in their child's digital life.
I do expect some of the platforms to drag their feet, because it seems they always do.
Meta is already facing a lawsuit, filed in a California federal court, which argues that Meta unlawfully misled the public about the harms its products, like Facebook and Instagram, could impose on children and teens.
In the UK, Bytedance's TikTok is looking at a $28.91m fine related to how children are safeguarded on the app.
Meta, ByteDance, Alphabet, and Snap, are facing another lawsuit alleging their social platforms have adverse mental health effects on children and for running platforms that are addictive to kids.
While it is clear that something needs to be done to protect our children, agreeing on the way in which we can achieve this is hard.
Especially if we can't rely on all the social media platforms to volunteer their cooperation.
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This Cyber News was published on www.malwarebytes.com. Publication date: Mon, 04 Dec 2023 11:43:04 +0000