Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis

QuestionCites unredacted court documents on plastic-surgery-style face filters harming youth mental health and challenges his commitment to protecting girls.

ResponseDefends filters as creative expression tools, says Meta stopped recommending such content to teens, and disputes the cited research.

QuestionRepeatedly asks, in plain terms, whether Zuckerberg wants teenagers using Meta's products more or less.

ResponseZuckerberg avoids a direct "more" or "less" for several turns before effectively confirming "more" via "useful enough that they want to use them more," while citing one specific example (a video-feed change that cut platform time by 50M+ hours) as a counterpoint.

QuestionReads direct quotes from Meta's own SEC 10-K filing (signed by Zuckerberg) stating that financial performance depends on retaining and engaging users, and that "younger users" specifically are noted as at risk of switching to substitute products.

ResponseZuckerberg confirms signing the 10-K but doesn't dispute or elaborate on the quoted engagement-dependency language before Ossoff moves to the fiduciary-obligation question.

Question“Is that not self-evident? You have a fiduciary obligation to your shareholders to get kids to use your platform more.”

ResponseSays the goal is making products more useful, not giving teams targets to increase time spent.

QuestionAsks whether Zuckerberg is familiar with, and disputes, the 2023 Surgeon General report finding that more than 3 hours/day of social media use doubles the risk of depression/anxiety in kids.

ResponseZuckerberg confirms he read the report and doesn't dispute its findings, but reframes the finding as "correlation" requiring further study rather than an established causal risk.

QuestionArgues the correlation between platform use and teen risk is well known, and asks directly if the platform is safe for kids.

Response"I believe it is, but there’s a…Difference between correlation and causation."

QuestionRepeatedly presses Zuckerberg to simply agree, in plain terms, that the internet — and Meta's platforms specifically — are dangerous places for children.

ResponseZuckerberg agrees the internet "can be" dangerous in general terms, but resists agreeing that Meta's platforms specifically are "dangerous places for children," disputing the characterization as implying the products are "inherently" dangerous.

QuestionCites an internal document referring to teen users' "lifetime value" as roughly $270 per teenager, names four specific Tennessee children/families affected, and cites the same 2021 Nick Clegg well-being-funding email chain (naming Davis, Clegg, Sandberg, Cox, Schultz, Mosseri as recipients) that Blumenthal separately raised.

ResponseNo direct response captured.

QuestionDescribes a specific case where content showing teens "for sale" to older men (per WSJ reporting) was left up until a congressional staffer personally escalated it to Meta's global head of safety, and asks why such content wasn't already deemed a violation.

ResponseZuckerberg says the content does violate standards in principle, cites the same 26-million-report NCMEC figure, and concedes "we made a mistake" in this specific case rather than explaining why standard enforcement failed to catch it before a staffer intervened.

QuestionAccuses Instagram of failing to remove content enabling the sale of minors, calling it a top venue for sex trafficking.

ResponseSays Meta's detection tools are industry-leading though imperfect, and denies being a trafficking site.

QuestionNames four specific lobbying/advocacy organizations Meta funds (Net Choice, Cato Institute, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Chamber of Progress) that have opposed child-safety legislation, and asks whether Meta will stop funding them.

ResponseZuckerberg agrees to "work with" the Committee on legislation generally, without answering whether Meta will stop funding the named lobbying groups.

QuestionSame trust-and-safety layoffs question, directed at Zuckerberg.

ResponseZuckerberg says layoffs were company-wide, not safety-specific, and reaffirms the ~$5B/year safety investment figure already cited elsewhere.

QuestionAsks whether Zuckerberg supports a standardized same-day removal process for compromising images.

ResponseZuckerberg says a cross-industry tool called "Take It Down" already exists for this purpose and that Meta helped build it.

QuestionAsks whether Zuckerberg still supports the concept of a dedicated federal regulatory agency for tech/social media, as he reportedly indicated in prior testimony.

ResponseZuckerberg says a federal agency "could be a reasonable solution" but flags tradeoffs (using encryption as an example) rather than a full endorsement.