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 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 .
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 from 41 state attorneys general. Court documents from the suit allege that Meta turned a to children under 13 using its service, to stop adults from sexually harassing teens on Facebook and that Zuckerberg personally 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 support for measures that would from algorithms and data gathering and implement parental consent requirements.
