Skip to main content
We may receive compensation from affiliate partners for some links on this site. Read our full Disclosure here.

WATCH: U.S. Senator Hawley Confronts Mark Zuckerberg, Demands National Apology To Victims of Child Exploitation Crimes Present At Hearing


Boom!

Mark Zuckerberg got called to the carpet!

In a hearing today dealing with children’s safety using the internet, Senator Josh Hawley asked Zuckerbert point blank if he had apologized to the victims.

“Would you like to apologize now?”

Then numerous people stood up behind Zuckerberg.

There’s no way he was expecting that!

 

HuffPost reports:

ADVERTISEMENT

During a Senate committee hearing on children’s online safety Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to parents who say the use of his social media platforms played a role in their children’s death or abuse.

“I’m sorry for everything you’ve all gone through,” Zuckerberg said at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington. “It’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.”

He added that Meta Platforms Inc. will “continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things that your families have had to suffer.”

Parents audibly hissed at Zuckerberg when he walked in. Many of them filled the chamber, holding up signs of their deceased children. The crowd was the “largest I’ve seen in this room,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said during the hearing.

Zuckerberg, whose social media empire includes Instagram and Facebook, was one of multiple tech CEOs grilled at the hearing, titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.” The session was prompted by parents’ concerns that social media platforms played an integral role in their children’s harassment, sexual exploitation, deadly drug sale, suicide or other suffering.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addresses attendees of Wednesday’s hearing.

“You have a product that’s killing people,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said at the hearing, telling Zuckerberg that “I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands.”

Other CEOs in attendance included those of TikTok, Discord, X (formerly Twitter) and Snap. For the heads of the latter three, the committee had to issue subpoenas to secure their attendance.

Zuckerberg was generally agreeable at the hearing, but he did push back when Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said it “appears that [Meta’s platforms] … are trying to be the premier sex trafficking site in this country.”

“Senator, that’s ridiculous,” he responded.

ADVERTISEMENT

This is what we need to see more of.

Here’s the clip:

Here’s Ted Cruz also calling Zuckerberg out:

Good question.

ADVERTISEMENT

YES or NO?



 

Join the conversation!

Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!

Leave a comment
Thanks for sharing!