A U.S. senator from Tennessee took to Fox News to slam Big Tech companies over the dangers their platforms pose to America’s youth.
“You know, I wish that each one of those [tech executives] would have taken their turn at apologizing to those parents,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told Harris Faulkner on “The Faulkner Focus.” “You look at the amount of pornographic material on X, you look at what Snap has done, connecting kids to pedophiles and drug dealers, TikTok, with the kids that have done these TikTok challenges and lost their lives, Discord which is used for chats and gaming, and kids are meeting really bad actors. Every one of them owed those parents that were in that room an apology and those kids – friends of kids – who had lost their lives that showed up wearing those t-shirts. Some were worth more than $230 which is what [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg said a teen was worth to them on social media.”
Our children are worth more than $270 — the “lifetime value” Meta has assigned per 13-year old user.
Mark Zuckerberg should hold his head in shame. pic.twitter.com/MOZtFNjoEh
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) February 2, 2024
Before posting the Fox News clip, Blackburn made another post on X.
“Kids are suffering because of the harms of Big Tech,” she said. “We need to pass the Kids Online Safety Act to rein in Big Tech.”
Kids are suffering because of the harms of Big Tech.
We need to pass the Kids Online Safety Act to rein in Big Tech.— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) February 2, 2024
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing called “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” Blackburn personally addressed five witnesses who were called to attend.
Those witnesses were Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X; Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok; Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and CEO of Snap; Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta; and Jason Citron, the CEO of Discord.
“Mr. Chew, we’ve heard that you’re looking at putting a headquarters in Nashville and likewise in Silicon Valley and Seattle. And what you’re going to find probably is that the welcome mat is not going to be rolled out for you in Nashville like it would be in California,” Blackburn told the TikTok executive. “There are a lot of people in Tennessee that are very concerned about the way TikTok is basically building dossiers on our kids the way they are building those on their ‘virtual you.’ And also that information is held in China, in Beijing… And we also know that a major music label yesterday said they were pulling all of their content off your site because of your issues on pay, on artificial intelligence, and because of the negative impact on our kids’ mental health.”
Notably, Zuckerberg apologized to the families of children who had been harmed via Instagram and Facebook during the hearing.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X / Twitter.
Photo “Marsha Blackburn on Fox News” by Marsha Blackburn.
