Zuckerberg addresses the families of abuse victims: “I'm sorry for everything you've all been through.”
Mark Zuckerberg stood in the Senate gallery on Wednesday to directly address family members of victims of online child abuse, a first for the Meta CEO and a special moment in a morning of tense discussions during a Judiciary Committee hearing on the safety of children.
“I'm sorry for everything you've all been through,” Mr. Zuckerberg said, turning his back from the bipartisan panel of senators to the family members, many of whom held photos of their deceased loved ones. “No one should have to experience what your families suffered.”
Mr Zuckerberg added that the company continued to work on this issue to prevent other families from going through similar experiences.
The moment came after a tense exchange with Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri. The senator pressed Mr Zuckerberg on a number of issues, including what he said was Meta's failure to adequately address what he characterized as rampant exploitation and abuse of children across the social media company's many apps – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Mr. Zuckerberg received most of the attention from senators during the wide-ranging hearing on online child safety, in which the CEOs of X, Snap, Discord and TikTok also testified. They pressed him on topics including child sexual abuse content and whether he supported proposed legislation to stop it.
Mr. Zuckerberg has vigorously defended his company's actions, noting during the hearing that he has authorized more than $20 billion to help protect the platform and hired tens of thousands of employees.
But he has also said that exploiting Meta inherently involves a trade-off, trying to elevate good experiences — facilitating connections between friends, lovers, celebrities and interests — and mitigating the bad ones. The senators who questioned him emphasized that he should focus the company's efforts on doing much better work in the latter category.
Before Mr. Zuckerberg addressed the gallery, Mr. Hawley asked whether Meta would provide any compensation to the families of deceased children who suffered abuse on the platform, adding that “your product is killing people.” Mr Zuckerberg did not answer the question directly. Most of Mr. Hawley's questions were shouted at the general manager.
“It's your job to be accountable for what your company has done,” Senator Hawley said before Zuckerberg stood to address the audience. “You've made billions of dollars off the people sitting here behind you. You did nothing to help them, you did nothing to compensate them, and you did nothing to make it right. You could do that here today, and you should.”
After Mr. Zuckerberg finished speaking, members of the families in the Senate gallery remained silent.
Mary Rodee, a parent in the interrogation room, later said she and other parents of the victims were skeptical of Mr. Zuckerberg's comments to them. She said she waited two years for a response from Meta about the death of her son, who she said died by suicide in 2021 after sexual exploitation in Facebook Messenger.
“The companies are not doing enough,” she says. “Enough talking.”
Cecilia Kang contributed reporting from Washington, DC