United States senators have issued subpoenas to X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Discord CEO Jason Citron and Snap’s Evan Spiegel to testify on Dec. 6 before the Judiciary Committee on online child sexual exploitation.
Democratic Senator for Illinois and party Whip Dick Durbin and Committee Chair, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, announced the move on Monday. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew are also expected to attend voluntarily.
Lawmakers want to quiz the social media executives over what they say is a failure to protect children online.
“Since the beginning of this Congress, our Committee has rallied around a key bipartisan issue: protecting children from the dangers of the online world. It’s at the top of every parent’s mind, and Big Tech’s failure to police itself at the expense of our kids cannot go unanswered,” Durbin and Graham said in a joint statement.
“Hearing from the CEOs of some of the world’s largest social media companies will help inform the Committee’s efforts to address the crisis of online child sexual exploitation.”
The summons come at a time when big tech platforms like TikTok, Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Google and Snap face mega lawsuits accusing them of knowingly maintaining social platforms that have become addictive and unsafe for children. Meta is also facing a separate lawsuit that alleges its products damage the mental health of children and young people in the U.S.
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