In case you missed it, on Wednesday members of the Senate held (yet another) hearing with CEOs of several different tech platforms, dressing them down and demanding yet again that they fix things! 

What was particularly amazing about this hearing with the Silicon Valley bigwigs was that it was a bipartisan effort. No split between Democrats or Republicans — they all were onboard to push online child safety bills. That in itself was refreshing to see.

The CEOs of TikTok, X/Twitter, Snap, and Discord (YouTube was conspicuously absent) went through their laundry lists of the policies their companies were doing to improve protections. For example, Linda Yaccarino of X announced that they were the first platform to endorse the StopCSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) Act. Sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the act expands protections for child victims in federal court. Yaccarino also said that X would support the Kids Online Safety Act, which would require platforms to enable the strongest safety settings by default.

Others touted their age-verification requirements, parental approval tools, and content-flagging tools.

Okay, that’s good. However, the Senators weren’t satisfied with an apparent lack of effort on the part of the tech CEOs. And the one exec who really caught the legislators’ wrath was Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (or Facebook, whichever you prefer).

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) really brought the thunder, forcing Zuck to apologize to parents of kids who suffered harm or even death due to social media.

Finally, Sen. Dick Durbin ended the hearing by emphasizing the bipartisan support for new legislation, which he said should send a “stark message.” He added:

Every single senator voted unanimously in favor of the five pieces of legislation we discussed today. 

So what is the big problem holding up online safety?

How the Tech Giants Get Away With It All

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) identified the dirty little not-so-secret as to why tech companies get away with the harms they do: they can’t be sued. That’s because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides immunity to online platforms for third-party content posted by its users. It has not changed since then.

Durbin blasted the tech companies for taking advantage of the law:

But now, it has become an entitlement for the most profitable industry in the history of capitalism to line their pockets at the expense of our kids. 

“Dick Durbin” by Cosmic Smudge is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

However, it was Graham who raked Mark Zuckerberg over the coals.

Graham told the story of how a South Carolina boy committed suicide after he encountered Nigerian scammers on Instagram (which is also a Meta company). The scammers tricked the boy into sending nude photos and then extorted money from him. The boy eventually committed suicide.

Graham then told Zuckerberg:

Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us — I know you don’t mean it to be so — but you have blood on your hands. You have a product that’s killing people. 

All because the antiquated Section 230 lets them get away with it. Graham continued:

You can’t be sued! That has to stop, folks! …for all the upsides, the dark side is too great to deal with. We do not need to live this way as Americans. 

But after all the fire and fury in the Senate on Wednesday, the question remains: did the Senators accomplish anything?

Will Anything Change?

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) expressed her frustration:

I just want to get this stuff done. I’m so tired of this. It’s been 28 years. And the reason they haven’t passed is because of the power of your companies.

After the hearing, Bloomberg tech writer Dave Lee also had thoughts, which he expressed at X/Twitter.

Lee said that Zuckerberg made a serious error in judgment when he claimed a scientific study showed no link between social media and mental health problems. After that, Lee said, Zuck lost the battle.

But, he added, these hearings happen over and over. Nothing gets fixed. It’s time for Congress to do its job.

https://twitter.com/opinion/status/1752801963509424300

Viewers of the hearings got visceral satisfaction at seeing the tech CEOs berated by the Senators. But, as Klobuchar pointed out, “it’s been 28 years” and there’s been no movement on Section 230. Congress, it seems, hasn’t done its job.

However, as Brandon Morse wrote at Red State, “Zuckerberg Can’t Fix Facebook.” It’s the nature of the internet:

The internet isn’t a safe place, but if we’re being completely honest, that unsafe part of it is partly what makes it valuable. Freedom and chaos are cousins, and you can’t have one without having elements of the other. 

But human nature is also at play here:

The sad fact is that people are sometimes evil and will do evil things in ways that people who run social media platforms won’t expect or see coming. Sometimes, it’s not for lack of wanting to stop certain things that go down on their platforms, it’s the lack of resources to make sure it can be done quickly. 

Zuck can’t fix his platform because he doesn’t have the ability to fix humanity. His apology, though a good thing, is hollow. He, too, knows that he can’t stop every bad thing from happening on his platform …

This might be controversial to say, but no one is demanding the CEO of Jack Daniels to apologize to the families of people killed in drunk driving accidents. No one is dragging the owners of various fast food chains before Congress to have them apologize to all the people who lost family members to heart disease. 

However, Morse adds that we shouldn’t let Zuckerberg or the other tech titans off the hook. They need to have their feet held to the fire of public outrage when necessary.

Yet the bottom line is this: parents are the first and best safeguard for their children when it comes to the internet. And they’re not perfect. Parents in pre-social media days sometimes couldn’t control their kids, either, and the internet makes parenting even more difficult.

If Congress can update Section 230, maybe that will help. Maybe passing new legislation will. Or maybe not. The internet is a technology that would’ve been akin to magic when I was young — the stuff of science fiction come to life. But it’s also a dark and ugly place. Sorry to say, there are no perfect solutions. Neither Congress nor the tech giants can truly fix social media.

Featured image: “Mark Zuckerberg poster, Protonet stall, Republica, Berlin, Germany” by gruntzooki is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and altered.