by Rob Morris, Love146 CEO & Co-Founder
Yesterday there was a historic hearing in which the Senate grilled CEOs of Facebook, TikTok, X (Twitter), Discord, and Snapchat on their role in online child exploitation. (You can watch the full 4-hour hearing here.) Parents and survivors shared heartbreaking stories, while lawmakers demanded stricter regulations and accountability. Though there was the typical vying for political soundbites, there was one message that came through loud and clear: tech giants must put people over profits and do more to prioritize children’s safety.
At Love146, every day we’re working with kids whose traffickers used social media to find and exploit them. The pain we’ve seen too many youth and families go through is devastating, unacceptable, and preventable. As a father myself, I identified with the parents in that senate chamber. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. We know so many families whose children have been victimized on these platforms.
For 5 years, we’ve been telling Meta to update settings for children. They FINALLY began to do it last week. They could have done this years ago, and they’re doing so now because pressure (and lawsuits) have mounted. If their priority was children over profit they would’ve taken action before. They’ve known they need to make changes and have the financial capacity to do so. They need to be held accountable because thousands of children have been hurt. Some have died.
Over the years, we’ve continued to hear arguments implying that we can either protect kids or protect free speech — we can do both. We think this complexity matters and it’s sometimes oversimplified. We’ve also heard people dismiss the pressure being put on these CEOs, suggesting that holding tech companies accountable is taking the responsibility off of predators. We call B.S. Again, it needs to be both. Compromising people’s well-being to turn a profit is what we also see human traffickers do every day. These apps facilitate that for the same reason: profit.
These companies have significantly underfunded their safety and security measures. They’ve dragged their feet on taking action, and still are. To protect children, they have to value people over profit. There has to be a fundamental shift. If we continue to measure the success of companies only by profit margins, then they are incentivized to not protect people.
Last month, a Boeing plane had a terrifying and dangerous malfunction in which a panel fell off mid-flight. The company was called out for putting profits over people. Planes were almost immediately taken out of commission until safety measures were put into place to prevent the same kind of thing from happening again. People paid attention. It was BIG NEWS. But how many planes full of children need to go down for us to pay attention to these apps and demand change?
These social media companies are doing all they can to avoid responsibility and meaningful change. We’ve been seeing these companies hide behind laws for years. The laws need to change. And in yesterday’s hearing, we’re still talking about social media technologies that were developed a decade or two ago. And relevant laws are STILL NOT PASSED.
New platforms are coming into popularity, like virtual and augmented reality – and predators are waiting there, too. Leaders could be prepared, but they’re not. The Senate has had a lot of hearings about this, but legislators and tech giants aren’t taking enough action. As Sen. Lindsey Graham said yesterday, “Save the applause for when we get a result. It’s all talk right now. But there will come a day if we keep pressing, to get the right answer for the American people. What is that answer? Accountability.”
Myself and many of us at Love146 – we’re parents. It needs to be said: This is a burden that caregivers shouldn’t have to carry alone. Yes, parenting means putting common-sense protective measures into place – but protecting our children under these conditions requires far more than “common-sense.” As professionals addressing child exploitation who are also parenting, we can say: this is still far too difficult. As parents, we try as hard as humanly possible to protect our children. These companies are not making it any easier for us. In fact, they are making it harder. And they should be held accountable.
We know life involves risk, and part of growing up is learning how to safely manage risk, but this is unmanageable. Kids on social media are being grossly bombarded with danger, and the job to block that should be on these tech companies. Instead, this burden is too often being put on kids to respond and protect themselves.
Here are resources to help you navigate this, including safer devices for youth, tips for caregivers, and a parenting webinar. This is put together based on what we do ourselves. Share these. We also have a new public service announcement video that you can share with your network.
Thank you for engaging in this. We really believe it when we say: This is about children’s lives. Their safety cannot be a political bargaining chip or a secondary concern.
Rob Morris
Love146 CEO & Co-founder
PS: If you got this far in our rant, you’re awesome. Thank you for caring. We could say a lot more, but our final thought is that we strongly encourage you to look through the testimony from former Facebook online safety employee and father, Arturo Bejar.
