Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told he has 'blood on his hands' during tense US Senate hearing

MARK Zuckerberg has been mercilessly warned there is "blood on his hands" for not doing enough to safeguard kids online.

The Meta CEO was dished the damning criticism by Sen. Lindsey Graham during a fiery congressional hearing that saw him and other social media big wigs come under fire from lawmakers on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg was just one of five social media giant CEOs that testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the hearing called “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.”

CEOs from Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord, and X, formerly known as Twitter, attended the hearing recorded by C-SPAN.

This included Meta CEO Zuckerberg, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, TikTok CEO Shou Chew, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Discord CEO Jason Citron.

Senator Lindsey Graham said Zuckerberg and the others have “blood on your hands” due to children who have lost their lives due to situations tied to social media, the Associated Press reported.

The hearing also highlighted how it was found that internal Meta documents suggested it estimated each teen user to be worth $270 to the platforms.

Meta owns Facebook and Instagram.

“Social media companies as they are currently designed and operate, are dangerous products,” Graham said during the hearing.

“They’re destroying lives threatening democracy itself.

“These companies must be reined in.

“Or the worst is yet to come.”

'BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS'

Graham noted he is sure the "blood" is unintentional, but that something needs to be done to get control of it.

“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,” Graham said.

“You have a product, that’s killing people.

“When we had cigarettes killing people, we did something about it, maybe not enough.

“You’re going to talk about guns, we have the ATF.”

Graham ended the statement and said, “Nothing here,” referring to nothing protecting lives when it comes to social media.

“There’s not a damn thing anybody can do about it.

“You can’t be sued."

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy went on to claim Meta platforms have become a "killing field of information" where users "see only one side of an issue" - points vehemently rejected by Zuckerberg.

"You have convinced over 2 billion people to give up all of their personal information — every bit of it — in exchange for getting to see what their high school friends had for dinner Saturday night," Kennedy said.

"And you take this information, this abundance of personal information and then you develop algorithms to punch people's hot buttons ... again and again and again, to keep them coming back and to keep them staying longer.

"As a result, your users see only one side of an issue, and so to some extent, your platform has become a killing field for the truth, isn't it?"

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[MrMercytres]

Parents are the big responsibility for the children's life. Not only company . You have a choice in life

[williamharris]

What's the point of taking him to court if your just going to interupt him and talk over him? The goverments are partially to blame for this too

[Dansince]

It's like telling the guy who invented the knife to apologise to stab victims...😅

[rosauraestrada]

Gun manufactures should apologize and compensate the family for those who died or suffered any kind of injury.

[enage.]

It's like telling Albert Einstein to apologise about the damage nuclear bombs have made 😂

[rcnhsuailsnyfiue]

Sorry, Zuck’s well deserving of criticism but that is a ridiculous line of questioning. “Who did you fire?” is not the same as asking “What did you do about it?”.

[zeldabaker]

Parents must also take responsibility for being on social media

[Gilbertodlgg]

Crazy idea. The parents could not give smartphones to children.

[nickkotowski]

"Are you going to compensate them, are you going to...."

Y'know, throwing money at it doesn't fix everything...

[kebab]

Zuckerburg can take as much precautions and steps as the senators want. Nothing will ever replace the duty of a parent. A real parent would monitor their kid’s activity online, not send them off to their rooms locking the door for hours.

[leeeroyjenkinss]

That's his job. He needs to generate revenue. He's not a babysitter. Parents need to know what their kids are doing, not Mark's responsibility.

[doctorstheory]

In some way blaming Apps or platforms for everything children suffer or do is like blaming gun manufacturers for the injury their children suffer from the guns they own.

[CityofAkirema]

oh wow so when will the parents say sorry for failing their kids

[TJ-ob]

I'm certainly no fan of social media like Instagram and Facebook. But this just comes off like one big performance for the cameras by this Hawley guy. I'd rather hear Zuckerberg's answers than him interrupting every three words.

[Xandersoler]

It’s like blaming all the car accidents in the world to the guy who invented the wheel 😂

[chrispaulart]

It's both parental responsibility AND the social media companies' jobs. People should be allowed to sue.

[SarcasmEnjoyer]

This is honestly just belligerent nonsense from the senator who is appealing to emotion instead of applying logic. Anyone with even a minutia of legal knowledge or common sense would conclude that Mark is not personally responsible - nor legally or ethically obligated to provide remedy out of pocket. Maybe we should send our Senators to 1L year of law school before their term.

[homeslice]

Love how the senator won't let him answer. He's grandstanding and doing a disservice to his role in government and credibility of this hearing.

[Venlo]

That’s the reason why I don’t have Instagram and Facebook because those social media are very toxic

[GEOTHERMALHEAT]

"who did you fire?"
> I fired everyone so now nobody is left to do the job