Senate subpoenas CEOs of Elon Musk’s X, Snap to testify on kids’ safety

The committee introduced that it additionally expects Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to look voluntarily. Spokespeople for Snap, Discord and TikTok didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Meta declined to remark.

Wifredo Fernandez, X’s head of presidency affairs for the U.S. and Canada, mentioned in an emailed assertion that the corporate has “been working in good religion to take part within the Judiciary committee’s listening to on little one safety on-line as security is our prime precedence at X.”

“As we speak we’re speaking our up to date availability to take part in a listening to on this essential problem,” Fernandez mentioned. It might mark Yaccarino’s first time testifying in Congress as X’s CEO.

The uncommon transfer marks a major escalation by lawmakers probing how social media platforms could hurt kids’s psychological well being, an space of broad bipartisan curiosity on Capitol Hill.

Whereas prime tech executives similar to Zuckerberg have repeatedly testified in Congress on an array of points in recent times, they’ve sometimes appeared voluntarily.

Senate Judiciary leaders and lawmakers on different congressional panels for months have been pushing for legislation meant to create new guardrails for kids and youths on the web, however the push has stalled amid coverage disagreements between Home and Senate lawmakers.

The committee mentioned that in a “outstanding departure from typical observe,” it needed to “enlist the help of the U.S. Marshals Service to personally serve the subpoenas” to the CEOs of Discord and X, previously Twitter, after their chief executives “additional refused to cooperate.”

The listening to is about to give attention to little one sexual exploitation on-line.