Heads of major social networks soon to be heard in the US Senate

The bosses of the main social networks, Meta, X, TikTok, Snap and Discord will be heard at the end of January in the US Senate on their efforts to protect children from sexual exploitation on their platforms, elected officials announced on Wednesday.

This hearing, scheduled for January 31, is the result of long-standing negotiations, assured Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and his Democratic counterpart Dick Durbin.

“We knew all along that our efforts to protect children online would be met with skepticism from tech giants,” they said in a joint statement.

“Now that the five companies have agreed to cooperate, we look forward to hearing from their bosses,” they stressed.

If Congress has failed for years to agree on laws to better regulate information technology giants, the subject of child protection tends to unite elected officials from the two major political parties. But not enough to lead, for the moment, to a major reform.

At the same time, around thirty American states launched lawsuits against Meta at the end of October, accusing its platforms, Facebook and Instagram, of harming the “mental and physical health of young people”.