Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to families at a tense US Senate hearing, about the impact social media has on children.
US senators on Wednesday grilled leaders of the biggest social media companies and said Congress must quickly pass legislation, as one lawmaker accused the companies of having "blood on their hands" for failing to protect children from escalating threats of sexual predation on their platforms.
Zuckerberg testified at the hearing, along with X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
Under prodding from Republican Senator Josh Hawley, Zuckerberg stood up and addressed families who held up pictures of their children who they said had been harmed by social media.
As the hearing kicked off, the committee played a video in which children spoke about being bullied on social media platforms.
Senators recounted stories of young people taking their own lives after being extorted for money after sharing photos with sexual predators.
"Would you like now to apologise to the victims who have been harmed by your product?" Mr Hawley asked Zuckerberg, noting the hearing was being broadcast on live television.
Zuckerberg expressed regret about what they had experienced and pledged to work to prevent it from happening to others, but stopped short of taking responsibility for facilitating the abuse, as Mr Hawley suggested he should.
Getting to his feet, the Facebook co-founder turned around and addressed the families.
"I'm sorry for everything you have all been through," he said.
"No one should go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer."
Hawley aggressively criticized Zuckerberg during a contentious exchange. "Your product is killing people," he told Zuckerberg, whose firm owns social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.
Wednesday's hearing marks the latest effort by lawmakers to address the concerns of parents and mental health experts that social media companies put profits over guardrails that would ensure their platforms do not harm children.
"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," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. "You have a product that's killing people."
Senator Dick Durbin, the Judiciary Committee's Democratic chairman, cited statistics from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children nonprofit group that showed skyrocketing growth in financial "sextortion," in which a predator tricks a minor into sending explicit photos and videos.
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar questioned what she said was inaction in the tech industry, comparing it to the response shown when a panel blew out of a Boeing plane earlier this month.
"When a Boeing plane lost a door in flight several weeks ago, nobody questioned the decision to ground a fleet... So why aren't we taking the same type of decisive action on the danger of these platforms when we know these kids are dying?" Klobuchar said.
