Lawmakers on Wednesday denounced the chief executives of Meta, TikTok, X, Snap and Discord, accusing them of creating “a crisis in America” by willfully ignoring the harmful content against children on their platforms, as concerns over the effect of technology on youths have mushroomed.
In a highly charged 3.5-hour hearing, members of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee raised their voices and repeatedly castigated the five tech leaders — who run online services that are very popular with teenagers and younger children — for prioritizing profits over the well-being of youths. Some said the companies had “blood on their hands” and that users “would die waiting” for them to make changes to protect children. At one point, lawmakers compared the tech companies to cigarette makers.
I’m tired of the protect-the-children tactic. It deflects all the attentions to only one aspect. When the EU used it to kill end-to-end encryption, we saw how it undermined the privacy concerns about destroying the encryption. Politicians became useless, and it was security experts whose letter miraculously stopped the assault on privacy at the last minute.
This problem actually leads to a larger problematic pattern found among most politicians. They pick a handy excuse (like protect the children) to simplify a complex social problem into a degenerate political theatrics, so that they can ignore the opponents and look strong on TVs.
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