Some concrete answers to a notable question: How many people does each company have working on their trust and safety division?
Zuckerberg said Meta has 40,000 people.
Yaccarino said X has 2,300 people.
Chew said TikTok has 40,000 people.
Spiegel said Snap has 2,000 people.
Citron said Discord has "hundreds of people" but pointed out it has a smaller platform.
Sen. Butler says Zuckerberg answered differently in private
Butler asked the tech CEOs testifying whether they had met with parents about design changes that the platforms could implement to protect children.
All the platform leaders said they had met with parents.
When Zuckerberg answered, though, Butler stopped him and claimed that in a conversation the two had on Tuesday, Zuckerberg answered differently. She said Zuckerberg had told her he'd not spoken with parents about potential design changes.
Zuckerberg responded by saying he must have misspoken.
There have been a few times in this hearing in which senators have posed tough, interesting questions, but given the CEOs little time to answer.
I suppose that's how these things go, but it's leaving some big things unaddressed and sometimes letting the execs off the hook.
Spiegel offers apology to families who lost children after they bought drugs through Snapchat
While speaking to Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif., Spiegel apologized to families who have had children purchase drugs on Snapchat and later die from taking those drugs.
"I’m so sorry that we have not been able to prevent these tragedies," Spiegel said. "We worked very hard to block all search terms related to drugs from our platform. We proactively look for and detect drug-related content."
He added that the DEA's "One Pill Can Kill" campaign was shared on Snapchat and was viewed more than 260 million times.
Kennedy presses Zuckerberg on whether users understand platform
Sen. Kennedy mixed serious critique in his questioning with light moments, bringing some laughter to the hearing room.
Jokingly addressing Zuckerberg as "Mr. President," Kennedy posed an interesting question to Zuckerberg: Do users really understand what they're getting into?
“Do you think your users really understand what they’re giving to you, all their personal information, and how you process it, how you monetize it? Do you think people really understand?” the senator asked.
Zuckerberg initially replied, “I think people understand the basic terms.”
Throughout this hearing, Yaccarino has repeatedly characterized X as a distinct entity from Twitter, calling X a "14-month-old company."
During the hearing, the CEO voiced her support for the Shield Act, but has also distanced the current leadership from the company's actions while it was known as Twitter.
It only took three hours into this hearing for a senator to bring up slang.
When addressing Spiegel of Snap, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked, "What does 'yada yada yada' mean?
The CEO said he is not familiar with the term, to which Kennedy replied: "Very uncool."
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., asked some of the CEOs how many minors were on their platform.
Spiegel said 20 million teenage users on Snapchat.
Chew didn't have an answer for TikTok.
Yaccarino repeated a statistic that less than 1% of users on X were minors and said X currently has 90 million U.S. users total.
“Being a 14-month-old company, we have reprioritized child protection and safety measures and we have just begun to talk about and discuss how we can enhance those with parental controls," she added.
Hearing resumes
We're back. Nine senators to go.
During the break I talked to a Capitol police officer in the hearing room. He said this is a really big crowd for a hearing... but the craziest he’s seen was the crown that gathered when Elon Musk came to testify in a closed hearing.
I have logged hundreds of hours in those empty hearings. Upside? Somewhere to plug your computer in and reporters get to sit. Downside? Empty dais and boring and no news.