FB, Google CEOs blasted in Congress over apps for kids
WASHINGTON: Facebook Inc. and Google came under fire at a congressional hearing for the impact their social media services have on children, with lawmakers zeroing in on Facebook’s plan for a new app for kids and YouTube’s feature that serves up a continuous stream of videos.
At a hearing focused on disinformation and extremism, lawmakers pressed Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc. and Google, which owns YouTube, to answer questions about whether their products are designed to keep kids addicted and pose a threat to their well-being.
“Your platforms are my biggest fear as a parent,” said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican and the mother of three school-aged kids. “My husband and I are fighting the big tech battles in our household every day. It’s a battle for their development, a battle for their mental health, and ultimately, a battle for their safety.”
The tech executives appeared alongside Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey on Thursday before members of two US House Energy and Commerce subcommittees during a virtual hearing that also examined how social media companies police falsehoods on Covid-19, vaccines and the election.
Questions at the more than five-hour-long hearing addressed points ranging from the US Capitol riots to corporate diversity reports, but one topic that surfaced over and over was whether the internet giants do enough to protect children from the harmful effects of their services on their mental health and privacy.
The bipartisan attack from lawmakers about the effect of social media on kids marked an escalation in one front of broader effort to rein in the tech giants. While the lawmakers pressed the executives aggressively on the issue, they have thus far offered little detail on how they would regulate the companies’ services for young people.
Several lawmakers cited the news earlier this month that Facebook is building a version of its photo-sharing app Instagram specifically for children younger than 13 — an age group that is currently prohibited from using most of the social media giant’s services. Previously, Facebook launched Messenger Kids, which is a version of the company’s messaging app for pre-teens that gives parents the power to keep tabs on their children’s actions on the service. Google has also created a separate YouTube Kids app to provide safer, youth-oriented video content.
Representative Bob Latta, an Ohio Republican, asked Zuckerberg whether Facebook shoulders part of the blame for an underage girl’s suicide after a man showed a compromising photo of her to her peers on the social network.
Zuckerberg said it was “an incredibly sad story”, and said his company bears responsibility to build systems to remove that kind of content. In another exchange, he sought to highlight the good social media can do when it enables meaningful interactions.
“Using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental health benefits,” Zuckerberg said.