    [Senate Hearing 118-663]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 118-663

                        SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE TEEN MENTAL
                                 HEALTH CRISIS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON PRIVACY,
                            TECHNOLOGY, AND THE LAW

                                     of the

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION
                                   __________

                                NOVEMBER 7, 2023
                                   __________

                              Serial No. J-118-42
                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

                  [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                            www.judiciary.senate.gov
                                www.govinfo.gov

                                    ------

                      U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    60-432                    WASHINGTON : 2025

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                       RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina,
    AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota               Ranking Member
    CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
    RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      JOHN CORNYN, Texas
    MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
    CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           TED CRUZ, Texas
    ALEX PADILLA, California             JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  TOM COTTON, Arkansas
    PETER WELCH, Vermont                 JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
    LAPHONZA BUTLER, California          THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
                                         MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
                 Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
          Katherine Nikas, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director

                Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law

                     RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut, Chair
    AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri, Ranking
    CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware         Member
    MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
    ALEX PADILLA, California             MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
                                         JOHN CORNYN, Texas
                    Cassie Fields, Democratic Chief Counsel
                Julissa Milligan Walsh, Republican Chief Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page

    Durbin, Hon. Richard J...........................................     5
    Graham, Hon. Lindsey O...........................................     6
    Blumenthal, Hon. Richard.........................................     1
    Hawley, Hon. Josh................................................     3
    Blackburn, Hon. Marsha...........................................

                                    WITNESS

    Bejar, Arturo....................................................     7
        Prepared statement...........................................    38

                                    APPENDIX

    Items submitted for the record...................................    53

                        SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE TEEN MENTAL
                                 HEALTH CRISIS

                                  ----------

                           TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2023

                          United States Senate,
                   Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology,
                                           and the Law,
                                    Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
    Room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Blumen-
    thal, Chair of the Subcommittee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Blumenthal [presiding], Klobuchar, Coons,
    Hirono, Hawley, Kennedy, Blackburn, and Cornyn.
        Also present: Senators Durbin, Graham, Welch, and Butler.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL,
              A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

        Chair Blumenthal. This hearing of the Judiciary
    Subcommittee on Technology, Privacy, and the Law will come to
    order. Thank you, everyone, for attending.
        My thanks to Ranking Member Hawley, and particularly to the
    Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin, for giving us
    this opportunity, and he is vitally interested in this topic,
    and I'm going to call on him after Senator Hawley for his
    remarks.
        We are gathered today to ear testimony from a whistleblower
    and engineer, widely respected and admired in the industry. And
    not just any expert, but an engineer hired specifically by
    Facebook to help protect against harms to children and make
    recommendations for making Facebook safer.
        We've known for more than a decade that rates of teens
    suffering from suicides, hospitalizations for self-harm, and
    depression have skyrocketed.
        As he knows, these numbers are more than statistics.
    They're real people, and his daughter is one of them. Arturo
    Bejar is the former director of engineering for Protect and
    Care at Facebook, and he will tell us about the evidence he
    brought directly to the attention of the top management of
    Facebook and Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and others
    in meetings and memos.
        He resoundingly raised an alarm about statistics showing
    Facebook's prevalent and pernicious harms to teens--telling
    Mark Zuckerberg, for example, in a memo that more than half of
    Facebook users had bad or harmful experience just within the
    last week.
        Instead of real reform, he will testify that Facebook
    engaged in a purposeful public strategy of distraction, denial,
    and deception.
        They hid from this Committee and all of Congress evidence
    of the harms that they knew was credible. And they ignored and
    disregarded recommendations for making the site safer, and they
    even rolled back some of the existing protection.
        Now, Mr. Bejar is not the first or the only whistleblower
    to come forward. We heard from Frances Haugen who showed that
    Facebook's own researchers described Instagram itself as a,
    quote, ``perfect storm,'' end quote, and that it, quote,
    ``exacerbates downward spirals of addiction, eating disorders,
    and depression.''
        Mr. Bejar is the first to show in documents--not just in
    his recollection, but in documents how he warned the top
    management of Facebook and Instagram of the ongoing harms their
    products were causing. We're going to present those documents
    for the record, and they show, for example, that over a quarter
    of young teens, 13 to 15 years old, report receiving sexual
    advances on Instagram.
        [Poster is displayed.]
        Chair Blumenthal. Nearly a third of young teens have seen
    discrimination based on gender, religion, race, and sexual
    orientation.
        A quarter of young teens report having been bullied or
    threatened.
        And nearly a quarter of young teens report experiencing
    feeling worse about themselves, about their bodies, and their
    social relationship. The type of experience that lead to
    serious depression and eating disorders.
        And when users reported harmful content to Facebook, it
    took action only 2 percent of the time. Remedies only 2 percent
    of the time.
        There's a history here. In August of 2021, Senator
    Blackburn and I wrote to Facebook about the impact of their
    products on kids. We asked, quote, ``Has Facebook research ever
    found that its platforms and products can have a negative
    effect on children's and teens' mental health or well-being? ''
    Facebook refused to answer.
        In October of 2021, Senator Blackburn and I held a hearing.
    We heard from Frances Haugen about Instagram's harms, and on
    that same day, Mr. Bejar sent an email to Mark Zuckerberg,
    Sheryl Sandberg, Adam Mosseri, and other executives validating
    Ms. Haugen's testimony.
        That email actually demonstrated even greater harms than
    were then public--a chilling and searing indictment of
    Instagram and Facebook. And I'm going to ask that it be made
    part of the record, without objection.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        In December of 2021, Mr. Mosseri then testified to the
    Committee--to our Subcommittee, after he met with Mr. Bejar
    discussing these numbers and statistics relating to suicide.
    And during that hearing, a number of us asked him about
    Facebook promoting suicide.
        Mr. Mosseri knew--but he didn't disclose--that on a weekly
    basis, around 7 percent of Facebook users overall encounter
    content promoting suicide and self-harm, with 13- to 15-year-
    olds seeing it more often than others.
        There's a pattern here with Facebook. It hides risks by
    saying things like bullying and harassment is only 0.08 percent
    of content.
        When in reality, Meta executives know that 11 percent of
    those 13- to 15-year-olds face bullying every single week--
    every single week on Instagram.
        And just to be absolutely clear, that's millions of
    children and teenagers. It's not just a number. Behind every
    one of those numbers, is a real person, a teenager, a child
    whose life is changed--maybe forever, by that searing
    experience of bullying, eating disorder content, suicide
    promotion.
        We can no longer rely on social media's mantra, ``Trust
    us.'' We can no longer depend on its putting the blame or
    responsibility on parents.
        What's needed now is legislative reform, the Kids Online
    Safety Act. Senator Blackburn and I have enlisted more than 45
    of our colleagues, almost half the United States Senate, in
    favor of the Kids Online Safety Act.
        And the final point I would make is that social media, in
    particular Facebook, still fails to take these threats
    seriously.
        This June, The Wall Street Journal found that Instagram was
    hosting open markets for child abuse material, even
    recommending pedophiles to each other. Young teens were being
    extorted and coerced into sexual acts. Instagram was complicit.
        Mr. Bejar, you provided Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, and
    others in management, with specific recommendation to prevent
    teens from experiencing this unwanted sexual contact and
    harassment. Those recommendations were never adopted. You have
    put your career on the line to come forward--an experienced and
    trusted industry expert whose job was to make Facebook safer,
    and your recommendations were purposefully ignored, or
    disregarded, or rejected.
        I'm just going to remind my colleagues that we've heard
    from young people as well as parents about these harms, and one
    of them told me, ``How many more children have to die before
    Congress will do something? '' That's why we're here today, and
    I want to thank all of my colleagues who are present--truly a
    bipartisan group on behalf of this cause and turn to the
    Ranking Member, Senator Hawley.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSH HAWLEY,
               A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI

        Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
    you for convening this hearing. This is such a vital hearing on
    a vital topic, and to be honest with you, this hearing
    concerns, I think, every parent's nightmare.
        And I see you're nodding, Mr. Bejar. You're a father, that
    subject composes--that reality composes some of your testimony.
    I'm also a father of three, and what you have brought to this
    Committee today is something that every parent in America needs
    to hear. The numbers are really stunning. That one in four
    teenagers, minor children will experience sexual solicitation
    on Meta's platforms at some point. One in eight say that they
    have experienced unwanted sexual advances.
        We're talking about children now. These are not adults.
    Children have experienced unwanted sexual advances just in the
    last week, within the last 7 days.
        And, of course, we know from Meta's own internal research
    that they knew the extent of this problem even as they were
    ignoring you. And I want to turn to some of that research that
    Senator Blumenthal just referenced.
        Here's what Meta--these are Meta's own words from their own
    internal research on the effect of their own product on
    children, particularly young women. Quote: ``We make body image
    issues worse for one in three teen girls.''
        Quote: ``Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of
    anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and
    consistent across all groups.''
        Quote: ``Teens told us they don't like the amount of time
    they spend on the app, but they feel they have to be present.
    They often feel addicted and know that what they're seeing is
    bad for their mental health, but feel unable to stop
    themselves.''
        This is the reality that Meta and Instagram, Facebook, they
    knew these things were happening. These quotes are years old
    that I just read. You pointed this out to them, too, Mr. Bejar,
    and still they did nothing.
        In fact, they did worse than nothing. And what your
    testimony shows is, when you brought these concerns to them,
    when you exposed this reality, rather than respond, they cooked
    the books.
        If I understand your testimony correctly, they started
    telling the public, including Congress and, of course, every
    parent in America that, ``Oh, we get 90 percent of unwanted
    sexual material, child sex abuse material, pornography,
    terrorism threats--we take it down. Our AI systems find it and
    take it down.''
        But what you expose is, in fact, those AI systems are
    catching only a small, small percentage of that kind of abusive
    material online.
        So when Facebook is out there promoting to the world, ``Oh,
    we're taking down the vast majority,'' it's simply not true.
    And in fact, they know it's not true. And that statistic is
    designed to mislead.
        They are deliberately misleading parents about what's on
    their platform. They are deliberately misleading parents about
    the safety of their children online.
        And I just want to echo something that Senator Blumenthal
    has said: It is time for Congress to take action. It was time
    years ago for Congress to take action. It is--it is an
    indictment of this body, to be honest with you, that we have
    not acted. And we all know the reason why.
        If I could just start with a little plain talk here this
    morning. Big Tech is the biggest, most powerful lobby in the
    United States Congress. They spend millions upon millions upon
    millions of dollars every year to lobby this body. And the
    truth is, as every reporter in this room knows, and I hope
    you'll report it after this hearing, they do it successfully.
        They successfully shut down every meaningful piece of
    legislation every year. I've only been here for 4 years and I
    have seen it repeatedly, in the short time I have been here.
        We'll get all kinds of speeches in Committee, we'll get
    speeches on the floor about how we have to act, and then this
    body will do nothing. Why? Money, that's why. Gobs of it. Gobs
    of it--influencing votes. A hammer hold on this process.
        It is time for it to be broken. And the only way I know to
    break it is to bring the truth forward. And that's why we are
    so glad, Mr. Bejar, that you are here today to do it. Thank
    you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Hawley. The only footnote
    I would add is, this time must be different.
        Senator Hawley. That's right.
        Chair Blumenthal. They have armies of lawyers and
    lobbyists. They spend tons of money, but this time must be
    different. Senator Durbin.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
               A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

        Chair Durbin. Thank you, Chairman Blumenthal and Senator
    Hawley.
        And let me follow up with Senator Hawley's comments. I
    couldn't agree more. I could not agree more.
        And in the Senate Judiciary Committee, after some graphic
    hearings where parents and victims came forward and told us
    what had happened to them online, we decided to take action.
        We passed six bills related to this issue--child sexual
    abuse and similar issues--six bills. And something happened
    that was miraculous: All six passed unanimously. Every Democrat
    and every Republican. Take a look at the folks who are up--are
    on the ends of the table. It's across the political spectrum.
    We all agreed on this. What has happened since? Nothing.
        Six bills waiting for a day on the calendar. Six bills
    waiting for a national debate. Six bills passed unanimously on
    a bipartisan basis. And they put real teeth in enforcement,
    too.
        And I think that's why they've gone nowhere. Big Tech is
    the big kid on the block when it comes to this issue--and many
    other issues before us. That's the reality.
        I want to thank Chairman Blumenthal and Senator Hawley for
    bringing together so many Members at this hearing.
        Our philosophy in putting together the Subcommittees was to
    say to each of the Senators in charge of them, ``Do your best.
    Take your issue that means something to you and do your best to
    bring it to the American people and legislation to the floor of
    the United States Senate.''
        This Committee is one that I'm counting on to be successful
    in this regard.
        Mr. Bejar, thank you for the courage of stepping up and
    speaking up. The only amendment I would make to the Chairman's
    remarks and Senator Hawley's is, it's not only a parent's
    issue, it's a grandparent's issue, too. We see this and it
    scares the hell out of us.
        So thank you for what you've brought us today. I'm
    particularly intrigued by your idea of a survey so that we find
    out from the source what's really happening.
        My experience at Capitol Hill goes back several years. I
    took on a tobacco issue. We were hitting our head against the
    wall trying to penetrate this vast lobby at the time.
        The one way we managed to penetrate it was to make it a
    children's issue. Protecting kids from addiction to tobacco.
    And then a lot of good things started happening.
        Why is it that this issue, which relates to our kids so
    much more and is so much more dangerous even than tobacco, in
    my estimation, why is it so difficult?
        Senator Hawley's correct. We're really fighting the biggest
    kid on the block when it comes to this issue. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks very much, Senator Durbin and
    thank you for your leadership on this issue.
        I'm going to turn to Senator Graham if he has some opening
    remarks, and then to Senator Blackburn.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LINDSEY O. GRAHAM,
            A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

        Senator Graham. Very quickly. Maybe number seven is the
    magic number of bills--the next bill, I hope.
        And thank you Senator Blumenthal and Hawley for doing this,
    is to sunset Section 230. The other bills are going nowhere
    until they believe they can be sued in court. The day they know
    the courtroom is open to their business practices, they will
    flood us with all kind of good ideas.
        Until that day comes, nothing's going to happen.
        And I said as we passed them, ``They're going to go to the
    floor to die and be on Senator Schumer, Senator McConnell.''
        What's the House doing? Not much.
        So the bottom line is, a society that cannot take care of
    its children--or refuses to--has a bleak future.
        So thank you for doing this.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Graham. Senator
    Blackburn.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN,
               A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

        Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And Mr. Bejar, thank you so much. Thank you for the time
    that you've given Senator Blumenthal's staff, my staff, as
    you've met with us, and for being so open when you met with
    Senator Blumenthal and I last week. I really appreciate this.
        As Senator Blumenthal said--and we have worked on this for
    years, and he built the timeline out going to 2021.
        But the work we were doing, looking at Big Tech and looking
    at some of the problems, the lack of privacy, the frustration
    of people not being able to control who had access to their
    virtual ``you,'' is what led us to this point to begin to look
    at what was happening to our children.
        And, as I told you in our meeting, the day we had that
    first hearing--looking at what was happening online with
    children--it was like the floodgates opened. And we started
    hearing from moms and dads--not only in Tennessee and not only
    in Connecticut, but across the country--who were saying, ``Can
    I please tell you my story? ''
        The reason they did this is because their hearts were
    breaking.
        Their children had committed suicide.
        Their children had met a drug dealer.
        Their children had met a pedophile.
        Their child had met a sex trafficker.
        They had been exposed to cyber bullying and had committed
    suicide.
        They were looking up ways to commit suicide.
        See, there are laws in the physical world that protect
    children from all of this. But online, it has been the Wild
    West. And as my colleagues have said, we have fought this army
    of lobbyists for years.
        Big Tech has proven they are completely incapable of
    governing themselves, of setting up rules, of having
    guidelines, of designing for safety. And it is so important
    that we move forward with this.
        Now, one thing I will add--and I think is so important for
    your being here and for our colleagues that weren't a part of
    what we were doing.
        In 2021, Mr. Mosseri, when he came before us as the CEO of
    Instagram, indicated they were taking steps.
        But we find out they were not. We find out from the advice
    and the awareness that you provided Mark Zuckerberg and Mr.
    Mosseri, what did they do with that? They made a conscious
    decision to ignore your advice and guidance and used our kids
    as the product.
        The longer they're online, the richer that data is.
        The richer the data is, the more money they make.
        So they have monetized what comes from our children being
    addicted to social media.
        Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Blackburn.
        Let me introduce--formally introduce the witness. Arturo
    Bejar is a former security engineer with very significant
    experience working on user safety and well-being.
        At Facebook he served as director of engineering for
    Protect and Care, a specific team at Facebook from 2009 to
    2015. He reported to the CTO.
        He then came back as a consultant to help Instagram's Well-
    Being Team from 2019 to 2021. He is also a parent to a
    courageous young girl--young woman who spoke up about her
    experiences online.
        Mr. Bejar, as is our custom, I'm going to administer the
    oath to you now. If you would stand, please.
        [Witness is sworn in.]
        Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. Please go ahead.

     STATEMENT OF ARTURO BEJAR, FORMER DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING FOR
            PROTECT AND CARE, FACEBOOK, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

        Mr. Bejar. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, Chairman
    Blumenthal, Ranking Member Hawley, and Members of the
    Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before
    you and for your interest in addressing one of the most urgent
    threats to our children today--to American children, and
    children everywhere.
        My name is Arturo Bejar, and I appear before you today as a
    dad with firsthand experience of a child who received unwanted
    sexual advances on Instagram.
        As an expert with over 20 years of experience working as a
    senior leader, including leading online security for--and
    safety and protection at Facebook, it is unacceptable that a
    13-year-old girl gets propositioned on social media.
        Unfortunately, it happens all too frequently today. In a
    carefully designed survey by Instagram in 2021, we found that
    one in eight kids age 13 to 15 years old, experienced unwanted
    sexual advances in the last 7 days.
        This is unacceptable, and my work has shown that it doesn't
    need to be this way.
        Starting in 2009, I was the engineering and product leader
    for Facebook's efforts to reduce online threats to both
    children and adults. I met regularly with senior executives,
    including Mark Zuckerberg, and they were supportive of this
    work.
        As a parent, I took the work personally, and I worked hard
    to help create a safer environment. By the time I left in 2015,
    I felt the work was going in the right direction.
        A few years later, my 14-year-old daughter joined
    Instagram. She and her friends began having awful experiences,
    including repeated unwanted sexual advances, harassment. She
    reported these incidents to the company and it did nothing.
        In large part--because of what I learned as her father--in
    October of 2019, I returned to Facebook, this time as a
    consultant with Instagram's Well-Being Team.
        We tried to set goals based on the experiences of teens
    themselves. Instead, the company wanted to focus on enforcing
    its own narrowly defined policies, regardless of whether that
    approach reduced the harm that teens were experiencing. I
    discovered that most of the tools for kids that we had put in
    place during my earlier time at Facebook had been removed.
        I observed new features being developed in response to
    public outcry, which were, in reality, kind of a placebo--a
    safety feature in name only to placate the press and
    regulators.
        I say this because rather than being based on user
    experience data, they were based on very deliberately narrow
    definitions of harm. The company was creating its own homework.
        For example, Instagram knows when a kid spends a
    significant amount of time looking at harmful content, content
    that they are recommending. Meta must be held accountable for
    their recommendations and for the unwanted sexual advances that
    Instagram enables.
        As soon as I understood this gap, I did what I had always
    done. I researched the problem, vetted the numbers, and
    informed Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and other
    executives. I did this because for 6 years, that was my job, to
    let them know of critical issues that affected the company.
        It's been 2 years since I left, and these are the
    conclusions I have come to.
        One, Meta knows the harm that kids experience on their
    platform, and the executives know that their measures fail to
    address it.
        Two, there are actionable steps that Meta could take to
    address the problem.
        And three, they are deciding time and time again to not
    tackle these issues.
        Instagram is the largest public directory of teenagers with
    pictures in the history of the world. Meta, which owns
    Instagram, is a company where all work is driven by data, but
    it has been unwilling to be transparent about data regarding
    the harm that kids experience and unwilling to reduce them.
        Social media companies must be required to become more
    transparent, so that parents and public can hold them
    accountable.
        Many have come to accept the false proposition that
    sexualized content, unwanted advances, bullying, misogyny, and
    other harms are unavoidable evil. This is just not true.
        We don't tolerate unwanted sexual advances against children
    in any other public context, and they can similarly be
    prevented on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media
    products.
        What is the acceptable frequency for kids to receive
    unwanted sexual advances? This is an urgent crisis.
        When asked, ``Has anyone threatened you, damaged your
    reputation, insulted you, disrespected you, excluded you, or
    left you out? '' 11 percent of kids said, ``Yes, in the last
    week.'' And one in four witnessed it happening, and the company
    does nothing about that.
        When asked if they saw a post that made them feel bad about
    themselves, one in five kids said, ``Yes, in the last week.''
        Meta executives know this. The public now knows this.
        When I left Facebook in 2021, I thought the company would
    take my concerns and recommendations seriously to heart--and
    act. Yet years have gone by and millions of teens are having
    their mental health compromised and are still being traumatized
    by unwanted sexual advances, harmful content on Instagram and
    other social media platforms.
        There was a time when at home, on the weekend at least, a
    kid could escape these things, these harms.
        But today, just about every parent and grandparent has seen
    their kids' faces change from happiness, to grief, to distress,
    the moment that they check social media. Where can a child seek
    refuge?
        It's time the public and parents understand the true level
    of harm enabled by these products, and it's time for Congress
    to act. Thank you for your time.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Bejar appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Bejar.
        We're going to now begin with questions and each of us will
    ask 5 minutes of questions and because of the turnout, I'm
    going to limit it to 5 minutes and then we'll have a second-
    round if folks want to do that.
        You know, we put in the record your memo to Mark Zuckerberg
    of October 5th where you recommend that there be, in effect,
    not only a change in the business practice of the company, but
    a culture shift, as you call it. And then you wrote to Mr.
    Mosseri separately on October 14th--I'm going to ask that that
    document be made part of the record as well--where you
    presented more of these statistics and very powerful evidence
    of harm.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Chair Blumenthal. And it seems to me that the reaction was
    to pat you on the head and, in effect, tell you to go away, be
    a good boy, and pull the curtain.
        Senator Hawley has referred to cooking the books.
        I think what they did was bury this evidence, conceal it,
    hide it, and deny it, in effect, to Congress and to the public.
        And then, in the past year, they've actually cut around
    21,000 jobs or a quarter of the global workforce in what Mark
    Zuckerberg has called the year of efficiency. Hundreds of jobs
    involving content moderators and safety jobs, including from
    Instagram's Well-Being Team. What is the impact of cutting
    those resources devoted to online safety?
        Mr. Bejar. Thank you for the question. If you start from
    the point that the work was already heavily under-resourced
    when I was there, that we were dealing 20 percent, 10 percent
    of people experiencing this, and that there was a small
    fraction of people dedicated to address that harm, and then
    they take more resources away from that, including the people
    who are doing the work to understand the harm that kids are
    experiencing, then it seems to me that the company culture is
    one of see no evil, hear no evil. We don't want to understand
    what people are experiencing and we were not willing to invest
    in that and the tools that will help.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. We spoke in advance of the
    hearing and you told me a story about meeting with another
    senior executive, Chris Cox, Facebook's chief product officer.
    And it was just so striking to me that he already knew a lot of
    the numbers and statistics and evidence of harm that you were
    bringing to Mark Zuckerberg's attention. Why was this meeting
    so memorable to you?
        Mr. Bejar. When I returned in 2019, I thought they didn't
    know. Like, when I began seeing a culture that was consistently
    ignoring what teens were experiencing, I thought that
    executives did not know.
        And I did spend a year researching, vetting, validating
    with people across the organization. And I would ask people,
    ``Do you know what percentage of people are experiencing this?
    ''
        And nobody was able to answer off the top of their head.
        The first person to do that was Chris Cox. And I found it
    heartbreaking because it meant that they knew and that they
    were not acting on it.
        Chair Blumenthal. In effect, their expressed caring about
    teens and safety and protecting children was all a charade, a
    mockery. They already had the evidence that you were bringing
    to their attention. They knew about it and they disregarded it.
    Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes, that's correct.
        Chair Blumenthal. And then they rejected your
    recommendations for making Facebook and Instagram safer.
    Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. That's correct.
        Chair Blumenthal. And let me ask you before we go to our
    next Senator, do you think that we, the Congress of the United
    States, should now act? Don't you think action is long overdue
    in this area, given the total lack of credibility on the part
    of social media?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes. My experience after sending that email and
    seeing what happened afterwards, is that they knew, there are
    things they could do about it, they chose not to do them, and
    we cannot trust them with our children. And it's time for
    Congress to act. The evidence, I believe, is overwhelming.
        Chair Blumenthal. I'm very hopeful that your testimony
    added to the lawsuit that's been brought by attorneys general--
    State attorneys general, across the country--I'm a former State
    attorney general, I believe strongly in enforcement by them--
    added to the interests that I think is evidenced by the turnout
    of our Subcommittee today, will enable us to get the Kids
    Online Safety Act across the finish line, along with measures
    like Senator Durbin's proposals and others that can finally
    break the straitjacket that Big Tech has imposed on us.
        Big Tech is the next Big Tobacco. I fought Big Tobacco in
    the 1990s. I sued Big Tobacco. I urged Congress to act. The
    same kind of addictive product that Big Tobacco pedaled to kids
    now is advanced to them and promoted and pitched by Big Tech.
    And we need to break the straitjacket they've imposed through
    their armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Thank you. Senator
    Hawley.
        Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Bejar, thank you again for being here. I just want to
    first establish a fact or two, just to make sure everybody
    understands.
        So on October the 5th, 2021, you composed an email, which
    is now, I think, in the record, to Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl
    Sandberg, and a group of other executives at Meta. Am I right
    so far?
        Mr. Bejar. That's correct.
        Senator Hawley. In that memo, you disclosed to them that
    according to your own research, one in eight children--children
    now, had experienced unwanted sexual advances within the last 7
    days. Is that correct?
        Mr. Bejar. That's correct.
        Senator Hawley. And about one in three, I think it was 27
    percent, had experienced unwanted sexual advances outside of
    the 7-day window. So that is more than 7 days. Is that correct?
        Mr. Bejar. That is correct.
        Senator Hawley. Those numbers are astounding. I just want
    to let that sink in. One in eight, within 7 days. A third of
    children outside of that window. Mark Zuckerberg, did he reply
    to you?
        Mr. Bejar. He did not reply.
        Senator Hawley. Did he meet with you?
        Mr. Bejar. He did not meet with me.
        Senator Hawley. Sheryl Sandberg, did she meet with you?
        Mr. Bejar. She did not meet with me.
        Senator Hawley. So in other words, the people who had
    recruited you to come back to Facebook--Meta--whatever--it's
    hard to keep up, they ignored your findings. When you presented
    data to them, they didn't want to see. They turned a blind eye.
        Let me ask you about something else. This is from The Wall
    Street Journal's report earlier this year.
        This is June of this year. They found the following, I'm
    going to quote: ``Instagram helps connect and promote a vast
    network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and
    purchase of underage sex content. Pedophiles have long used the
    internet, but, unlike the forums and file transfer services
    that cater to people who have an interest in illicit content,
    Instagram doesn't merely host these activities, Instagram's
    algorithms promote them. Instagram connects pedophiles and
    guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that
    excel at linking those who share these interests, The Journal
    and academic researchers found.''
        This is a stunning, stunning report, Mr. Bejar, that--that
    more than buttresses, bears out what you were telling, trying
    to tell the executives who ignored you. Just give us a sense,
    in your own view, why do you think this is happening?
        Why has Instagram become, in the words of The Wall Street
    Journal, ``a vast pedophile network''? Why are people like your
    daughter every time they get on Instagram, they're being
    bombarded with unwanted sexual advances, sexual content. Why is
    this happening?
        Mr. Bejar. My experience of that is that most of the
    resources, isn't close to all that they invest in this, go
    toward this very narrow definition of harm. And so I would
    encourage anybody here, when you're looking at this issue, if
    you find an account that seems to be a pedophile account,
    selling things, try and act on it. Try and raise it, see what
    the company does with that.
        But see what happens if you like it or follow it, what you
    start getting recommended. And of all of the things that get
    surfaced by the systems, how many of them are they acting on?
    It's a fraction of a percent.
        Senator Hawley. One of the things that you said changed
    from the time you left Facebook in 2015, I think it was, and
    came back in 2019, was that Facebook had shifted to an
    automated driven process of safety standards, safety
    inspection, monitoring for things like this, which they boast
    about. They say that their AI is great, it's doing great work.
    That doesn't appear, however, to be the actual fact. It appears
    that these harms are proliferating. Tell us about the shift
    toward automated safety monitoring and what that has meant in
    your experience.
        Mr. Bejar. I was not there for the shift, but what I can
    say is that algorithms are as good as their inputs. So if you
    don't allow a child to be, ``Oh, that is gross, it makes me
    uncomfortable,'' right--which is something that you can do for
    an ad today.
        You can take an ad and say that is sexually inappropriate.
    But there's no way for a child to do that when they get a
    message or other areas.
        How do these systems like even have a hope of addressing
    these issues? How can they as a company have a hope of
    addressing these issues if they're not willing to listen when a
    teen is trying to tell them that they're experiencing gross
    content, unwanted sexual advances? I mean, that's how you find
    predators. That's how you find the bad things.
        Senator Hawley. So what--what your research found, and what
    you elevated to leadership was, at least in part, that these
    automated systems were not catching the vast majority of this
    unwanted content out there. I mean, the sexual advances of this
    pedophile material, it simply doesn't begin to capture. Yet
    Facebook didn't shift more resources, didn't change their
    process.
        And here's the thing that really gets me, and I'll end with
    this, Mr. Chairman, I know there's others who want to question.
        I have been reading over and over and over again [holds up
    documents] this case filed by my home State, Missouri v.
    Biden--landmark First Amendment case--in which two Federal
    courts, a Federal district court and a Federal court of
    appeals, have found that Facebook, among others, actively
    coordinated with the present administration to censor First
    Amendment-protected speech.
        Not this garbage that is not protected by anything in our
    Constitution, but First Amendment-protected speech.
        Here's what gets me. What the courts found--this is in the
    record, this is factual findings--is that Facebook devoted all
    kinds of resources and people, actual human people to doing
    things like monitoring posts on COVID-19 vaccine efficacy.
    There's one example of a parent in my home State of Missouri
    who wanted to post something about a school board meeting.
    Facebook used human moderators to go and take down that post.
    That was important. That has to come down. We can't have them
    posting about school board meetings for heaven's sake.
        But the things that your daughter experienced, this [holds
    up documents]--this ring of pedophiles--rings, plural, that
    Facebook just can't find the time for. They just don't have the
    resources for it. That we just have to leave to, you know, let
    the market have its effect. Let AI do its job. We just don't
    have the resources for it.
        They had plenty of resources to censor First Amendment
    speech. No resources to protect our children. Absolutely
    unconscionable.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Hawley. Senator Durbin.
        Chair Durbin. Thanks for being here, Mr. Bejar. You said
    earlier in your opening statement that when you worked for
    these companies, they were data driven. What do you mean by
    that?
        Mr. Bejar. Everything at--everything at Meta--there's goals
    based on numbers. There's fine-grained understanding of what is
    happening. People set their jobs on that. The next 6 months,
    I'm going to make this number go from this to that.
        Chair Durbin. But the ultimate answer is they were dollar
    driven, too. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. What I can speak to very directly is that in my
    question to Adam was, you know, what percentage of teens should
    be experiencing unwanted sexual advances? If there's not a team
    that that's their goal, if they can't answer your questions
    about, well, how many teens are impacted by this? And if they
    cannot give you detailed data as to who's initiating those
    contacts, then it's just not a priority.
        Chair Durbin. But I--bottom line is this, they've made a
    decision that it's not a priority to them because of profit
    motive. Have they not? In terms of what it's going to cost them
    in their business model if they have to interrupt it and
    monitor the content.
        Mr. Bejar. I think that would be a wonderful question to
    ask Mark and Sheryl--well, Sheryl's no longer there--and Adam
    because they can speak to why they made these choices. I can
    only speak to the fact that they keep making these choices over
    and over again.
        Chair Durbin. Well, I would just back up what Senator
    Graham said. If this becomes expensive to them to continue this
    outrageous conduct, then they may pay closer attention. That's
    for sure. But you have suggested here, as well, that we need a
    survey of young people, as to their experience. You want to
    explain that?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes. The way that harm should be tracked on
    these products is, you go up to teens and ask them, did you
    receive an unwanted sexual advance in the last 7 days? And they
    are going to know, it doesn't matter what the message is.
        And then what you can do to help that teen is give them a
    chance to tell you. And the measures that I talk about are not
    even expensive to implement.
        Chair Durbin. We were also briefed by the DEA in terms of
    narcotics transactions and the use of platforms for that
    purpose. Did you ever look into that issue?
        Mr. Bejar. I did not directly, but what you can do is, if
    you look at the numbers that I provided the Committee, there is
    a category for that class of issues. And you should ask the
    company how much of that content, which teens experience as
    that, they take down.
        Chair Durbin. It's interesting to me that if one of my
    kids, when they were kids--our grandkids now--came home and
    said there was somebody lurking outside the playground at
    school that make the kids feel uncomfortable. We would know
    what to do and to move on it quickly. We'd find it
    unacceptable.
        And yet what we know for a reality is that there is danger
    lurking in the iPhones that they're opening up every single
    day. And yet we seem to feel that we are unable to respond to
    this. I hope we can change that.
        Senator Graham's suggestion about 230, I don't know. Do you
    have any thoughts on that? Section 230?
        Mr. Bejar. No, I'm not qualified to talk about 230. But I
    can say that these companies should be held accountable for the
    content they recommend.
        Chair Durbin. Well, I certainly agree with that. I think
    that is the bottom line. Thank you for your testimony.
        Mr. Bejar. Thank you.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Durbin. Senator Graham.
        Senator Graham. Thank you. You're doing the country great
    service here.
        Did they contest your memo? Did anybody call you up and say
    you don't know what you're talking about, you're wrong?
        Mr. Bejar. No. I must have spoken to 20 or 30 people,
    including Adam Mosseri, saying, ``Do you have any feedback?
    Any--anything that's inaccurate in my data? '' And nobody did.
        Senator Graham. Okay. Is it--to sum up your testimony, is
    it fair to say that in its current form what you're describing
    is a dangerous product?
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Graham. And that millions of families are affected
    by this dangerous, dangerous product?
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Graham. As a father who had a 13-year-old affected
    by this product, did you feel helpless?
        Mr. Bejar. I did. And I was, if one that could help, it
    would've been me.
        Senator Graham. If you could have sued them, would you?
        Mr. Bejar. I apologize, could you repeat the question?
        Senator Graham. If you could sue on behalf of your
    daughter, would you?
        Mr. Bejar. I believe they just have to be held to account
    and being transparent about----
        Senator Graham. Okay. Well one way of doing that is to sue
    them. Do you know you can't sue them under the current law?
        Mr. Bejar. I did not know that.
        Senator Graham. Okay. All right. So they--your daughter
    felt harmed. Your testimony is, millions of people are in the
    same situation as your daughter. They know what they're doing
    and they keep doing it anyway. Is that all correct?
        Mr. Bejar. That is correct.
        Senator Graham. I can't think of a company in the world
    that can do this crap and not get sued except these people.
    Now, if you had to give sovereign immunity, basically what
    we've done here, to a group of people, this would be on the
    bottom of my list, not the top of my list. So I've just asked
    my office to find out how much money I've received from
    Facebook, Instagram, and other companies. I'm going to give it
    back.
        I think we all--ought to all boycott the giving because if
    Senator Hawley's right, I think you are, their leverage here is
    just power over the political system.
        So I'm calling on every Member of Congress today, don't
    take their money until they change. Don't accept what they're
    offering you until they change. Because the money you're
    receiving is coming from people that have created a dangerous
    product for children and they seem not to be willing to change.
        That'd be on the bottom of my list, now that I know what
    you've told me, of people I want to associate myself with. Have
    you ever heard them talk about being afraid of anything or
    anybody?
        Mr. Bejar. I have not.
        Senator Graham. That's amazing, isn't it? Companies this
    big, he's telling them what you're doing is hurting people,
    they're indifferent to it. But they feel like they're immune
    from action because they pretty much are.
        Bottom line, if we did create a system where parents like
    you could sue and hold them liable in court, do you think that
    may change your behavior?
        Mr. Bejar. That is not for me to say. I just want my
    daughter, our kids to have the tools that they need when
    they're experiencing these things.
        Senator Graham. Yes. Well what I will tell you is that I
    believe it would. We'll never know till we try. I think we
    should dedicate ourselves on this Committee--which has been a
    pleasure to serve on Senator Durbin, all of you have been great
    on this issue--to not just pass bills, but insist on change.
        The ultimate change comes, my colleagues, is when they can
    be held liable in a court of law. Until you open up the
    courthouse, nothing's going to change. The day you do, you'll
    be amazed how many good ideas they knew about they didn't tell
    us. So I'm going to dedicate what time I have left in this
    business to opening up the courtroom because I don't think
    nothing else will do. And until that day comes, I'm not going
    to take any of their money.
        If every Member of Congress says, ``Your money is not
    welcome till you change,'' that might be the first step toward
    change.
        Thank you for your bravery. Sorry, what happened to your
    daughter. We owe you and everybody in your situation better.
    Thank you.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Graham. And that's why
    many of us have joined you in the call for abolishing Section
    230, including the Ranking Member and myself. Senator
    Klobuchar.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Blumenthal.
    Thank you for those words, Senator Graham.
        I am a strong believer in, ``We can talk about this and
    have hearings and keep reminding people that we need to get
    things done, but until we change the law, these are no longer
    companies that started in a garage with two guys tinkering
    around with platforms or computers or in their college dorm
    room.'' Okay?
        This is real lives that are getting lost, and I really
    appreciate Mr. Bejar that you are willing to come forward and
    testify.
        I'm going to focus on one area that I don't think we've
    talked about enough, and that is the platform's inability and
    refusal to take down sites that are selling dangerous drugs.
        Recently the DEA found that one-third of drug cases had
    direct ties to social media. I was just in Minnesota with a
    mom, Bridget who lost her kid. And the kid literally ordered
    one pill--as we say, one pill kills--on the internet thinking
    it was something else. It was laced with fentanyl. As the mom
    said--as Bridget said, ``All of the hopes and dreams we as
    parents had were erased in the blink of an eye. And no mom
    should have to bury their kid.''
        That's why Senator Durbin and I and others on this
    Committee have been working with Senators Shaheen and Marshall,
    as well as Senator Grassley on this bill that has come through
    this Committee already, and needs to go to the floor along with
    another of other bills we've talked about--to require social
    media companies to report fentanyl and other dangerous drug
    sales on their platforms.
        In the words of our DEA Administrator, they have
    basically--the cartels, who don't really care if people die or
    not because no one knows it--in Mexico and China, have
    basically harnessed these platforms. Do social media companies
    have the correct incentives to identify and eliminate drug
    sales to kids?
        Mr. Bejar. Thank you for the question and the concern on
    all of those important things. Until there is disclosure of
    what kids experience as drug content, sexual content, until
    there is transparency about these things, I don't know what the
    incentive is. Which is why I think transparency is so
    essential.
        You know, as parents and grandparents, we see it, we
    understand it, we know how frequent it is. That's what the
    numbers they have to share. And if I would want one thing for
    everybody here to know, is that when we talk about any category
    that you care about, for example, drugs, and then when the
    company talks about that category, they're likely talking about
    a fraction of a percent of what we as a society are
    experiencing.
        Senator Klobuchar. Exactly. And we all know there's a lot
    of other things to do with fentanyl including at the border,
    but this would be a major game changer for the ability to take
    these cases on.
        Prosecutors have also reported an emerging trend where
    offenders collect photos of children that may fall just shy of
    the definition of child pornography and distribute them on
    websites with the intent to harass or abuse the child victims.
    And there was a major story on this in The Washington Post.
        Senator Cornyn and I have a Bill, the SHIELD Act, to fill
    in gaps in Federal law so that prosecutors can hold those who
    abuse kids in this way accountable. In your role as a person at
    Facebook who was responsible for efforts to keep users safe,
    can you talk about the deficiencies in current policies?
        Mr. Bejar. Thank you for the question. If you look at
    content that sexualizes minors, again, the question is, is that
    something that actually violates company policy and would be
    removed, and is that what the company is acting on?
        Or does it end up being something that, because it is
    content that the company does not act on, they actually end up
    recommending and distributing? Right?
        And as a parent, we see this. Right? If you were to look
    and open the app and look for it, you can find it, and then if
    you like it, you get recommended it. And these are all things
    that the company is, I believe, aware of, in terms of reach,
    and can do things about and have chosen not to do so.
        Senator Klobuchar. Okay, very good. I think--I was
    listening to Senator Graham, and he's right that there's one
    big thing we can do is to allow these cases to go forward in
    court. But I also think some of these things I'm discussing,
    actually makes it easier for people to proceed with these cases
    and create incentives.
        And one thing I'd add, I'll ask it on the record, is that
    Senator Coons, Senator Cassidy--and I think Senator
    Blumenthal's involved--have a bill to allow independent
    researchers to look at the algorithms that you know are
    designed in a way that manipulates these kids and can lead to
    their deaths, to require these digital platforms to give
    independent researchers access to data. And I just--yes or no,
    I figure you think this would be helpful?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes.
        Senator Klobuchar. Yes. Okay, very good. Just again, thank
    you. And we can, again, talk about this all we want and we'll
    remember you and your story. But until we get these things and
    are allowed floor time by both sides and can maybe put them
    together into one package, we're just not going to get the
    solutions that we need. Because just getting mad at these
    platforms haven't changed their conduct.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks. Thanks, Senator Klobuchar.
    Senator Kennedy.
        Senator Kennedy. Mr. Bejar, social media can make people
    less lonely. Can it not?
        Mr. Bejar. It can do that.
        Senator Kennedy. Social media can deliver insight. Can it
    not?
        Mr. Bejar. It can.
        Senator Kennedy. Social media when used properly can give
    voice to the timid. Can it not?
        Mr. Bejar. It can.
        Senator Kennedy. Social media can also spread hate. Can't
    it?
        Mr. Bejar. It can.
        Senator Kennedy. And isn't it a fact that much of social
    media, not all, but much of social media has become a cesspool
    of snark?
        Mr. Bejar. What I can speak to Senator, is, it happens all
    so often and it doesn't need to be that way.
        Senator Kennedy. Yes. But is it that way for much of, not
    all, but much of social media?
        Mr. Bejar. One of the numbers that I talk about is this 20
    percent of kids who witnessed bullying in the last 7 days. And
    this is content that does not get taken down. If people comment
    on it, it gets promoted.
        Senator Kennedy. Yes. Well, let me put it another way. I'm
    trying to sum this up for us. Isn't it a fact that social media
    has lowered the cost of being an a-hole?
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. Bejar. Yes.
        Senator Kennedy. And isn't it true that social media
    removes any geographical border to the harassment of others?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes.
        Senator Kennedy. And isn't it true that some forms of
    social media optimize for engagement?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes. I think using your term, they reward being
    an a-hole.
        Senator Kennedy. Yes. And isn't it true that some forms of
    social media use surveillance to identify our and our kids' hot
    buttons?
        Mr. Bejar. I cannot speak to that.
        Senator Kennedy. Isn't it true that some forms of social
    media use algorithms to show us and our kids stuff that pushes
    those hot buttons?
        Mr. Bejar. I will say this. Recently, my daughter had
    somebody go into one of her posts about cars and said, ``You
    know, you'd like to drive and you like cars because you saw a
    man doing it.'' And she said, ``I'm studying automotive
    restoration. I've been doing this for years. I know a lot about
    cars. I am more than qualified.'' And the person shot back,
    ``No--women just belong in the passenger seat.''
        And to every point that you just made, I will say that when
    I asked her about that post, if she would delete it, because
    she knows reporting would do nothing, she said, ``I will not
    delete it because I'm worried that that will mean that less
    people will see my posts.''
        Senator Kennedy. All right. I'm not going to ask you this
    question. I'm going to make the statement because you're
    probably not familiar with Louisiana. But in my State, social
    media has impacted the news media, particularly print media.
    Thank God for our TV news and our radio news. But when it comes
    to our print media, we're--we in Louisiana--and that's print
    media and paper, paper and print media, which is on the
    internet--when it comes to print media, we in Louisiana are a
    news desert. We've only got about two real non-news print media
    journalists left who are fair and aren't opinion journalists.
    Most of our print media members are now sports journalists--
    which is fine, I love sports. But there's a lot else going on
    in the world. Let me wrap up this way. What you do is what you
    believe. Isn't it?
        Mr. Bejar. It is.
        Senator Kennedy. And everything else is just cottage
    cheese. Isn't it?
        Mr. Bejar. It is.
        Senator Kennedy. Yes. I look forward to the day when
    Members of the United States Senate will come together and
    establish a new rule, not used every day or every week, or
    every month, or even every year. But that rule would say, when
    there is a consensus, and when you, as a Senator, can
    demonstrate that you have 60 votes to pass a bill, that you
    have the right to bring that bill to the floor of the United
    States Senate, no matter who doesn't want it. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Kennedy. Senator Hirono.
        Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
    Bejar for testifying.
        I was curious about the fact that so many of the young
    people on these platforms are exposed to cyber bullying, and
    that can be anything. Your daughter experienced some of that
    because of some of the things that she posted online.
        So--but there is also an addictive quality to keeping these
    kids online. And for the platforms, keeping these kids online
    means money for them. What is it that--is there anything we can
    do to address the addictive aspect of what is happening to our
    young people where they continue to go on to these platforms
    and expose themselves to this kind of harmful content?
        Mr. Bejar. Thank you for the question. I think that it is
    essential to have good data about the impact that this product
    has. And it's not that difficult. You could take a teenager
    after half an hour and go, like, ``How are you doing? ''----
        Senator Hirono. Mm-hmm.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. ``Are you feeling better or worse?
    '' And then use that information.
        Senator Hirono. Let's say that we have this kind of data as
    to the harmful impact. What do you think we should do?
        Mr. Bejar. I think that products should adopt measures, and
    where appropriately compelled, to figure out a good way to help
    teens have a use of the product that serves them.
        Because I think what happens right now is it distresses
    them. And what I experienced as a parent, and I think every
    parent here has experienced, is that sense of urgency, of
    needing to be on there, and the impact that it has on their
    emotions.
        Senator Hirono. Do the young people understand the harmful
    impact themselves? Would it help if--part of your testimony is
    about how all of us should be--should understand what is
    happening. Would it help if the kids themselves also understand
    the harmful impacts? This is also an aspect of education, for
    example, of the young people. Would that help?
        Mr. Bejar. I think it helps to educate young people. I
    think what helps in my experience the most is changes to the
    product so that it's less harmful. And it's those changes and
    the refusal to do those changes is why I'm here.
        Senator Hirono. So right now, there's not much incentive
    for these platforms to change their product because they face
    no consequences for the content.
        So meanwhile, dozens of States, including the State of
    Hawaii, where I come from, have sued these companies, including
    Meta, alleging that they designed their products to harm users.
    And I think all or most of these cases have been consolidated
    in California. The defendants are saying that they are limited
    in their liability exposure because of Section 230.
        You're not a lawyer, but if these companies were exposed to
    legal liability and of these lawsuits--they are still pending,
    by the way. And if the companies are found liable and forced to
    pay money as a result of these lawsuits, do you think that
    would change their behavior as far as them paying attention to
    the harmful impact of the contents on their platforms?
        Mr. Bejar. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not qualified to weigh
    in on that.
        Senator Hirono. No. But you did testify that it's all about
    money for these companies. That's why they keep doing what they
    do. And if they were exposed to--if they had to pay money as a
    result of their content, do you think that would change their
    behavior?
        Mr. Bejar. My hope is, and what I believe will change their
    behavior is, it's the moment that Mark Zuckerberg, when he
    declares earnings, he has to say, ``Last quarter we made $34
    billion''----
        Senator Hirono. Mm-hmm.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. And the next thing he has to say
    is, ``And in Instagram, this is the percentage of teens that
    experienced unwanted sexual advances.'' That number would go
    down very quickly.
        Senator Hirono. How would it go down?
        Mr. Bejar. Because it would be incentivized to work on it.
    Because right now, there are no goals to reduce unwanted sexual
    advances, as far as I am aware.
        Senator Hirono. Except that if they are--if there's no law
    that prevents them from having these kinds--this kind of
    content, or there are no court cases, they're not held
    responsible for content, then the fact that people know that
    they have an incentive, that they have exposed these kids, so
    what? Right?
        They--and this is why there's so much attention being paid
    to Section 230 and the limited liability, in fact, no
    liability. They are protected from content of--they do try, I
    suppose, and you say that they have a very limited definition
    of what is harmful content.
        But on the other hand, I'm all for doing more than we are
    currently doing. But, you know, one of the things that can also
    happen, I read a letter asking the FTC to investigate matters--
    alleged practice of censoring advertisements for health
    products related to menstruation.
        And there Meta decided that this kind of advertisements was
    harmful. I hardly call that a very narrow definition of harm.
        So all these companies, left to their own devices, they get
    to choose what they deem to be harmful. And the examples that
    you cite, it's a very limited definition. But this, the example
    I cite, they've decided that women's health products, that is
    harmful and they're going to censor those kinds of products.
        So, you know, this is--it's a lot more complicated than at
    first, I guess, glimpse. But I know we're going to try and do
    something. So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Hirono. Senator
    Blackburn.
        Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
    for your testimony and your frankness. I know that we
    appreciate it.
        And my State of Tennessee, we have attorneys here from our
    Attorney General's office today, and they are pushing to also
    get something done about the overreach of Facebook. And we're
    grateful that so many States have stepped up to hold Facebook
    and Meta to task. So we appreciate this.
        I want to return us to December 2021, and Chairman
    Blumenthal mentioned this. He and Ic, at the Senate Commerce
    Consumer Protection Subcommittee that we led, had Mr. Mosseri
    in front of us. And you were consulting for Instagram at that
    time. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. So what is the date again?
        Senator Blackburn. December 2021.
        Mr. Bejar. I had left at that point.
        Senator Blackburn. You had left at that point. Okay. And a
    few months earlier, you sent him two emails that talked about
    youth harms on the platform. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Blackburn. Okay. Now I'm going to quote you some
    things from his testimony. He said, and I quote, ``We care
    deeply about the teens on Instagram, which is in part why we
    research complex issues like bullying and social comparison and
    make changes.'' Do you agree with that characterization?
        Mr. Bejar. I agree with that they make research. I don't
    agree that they make changes.
        Senator Blackburn. Okay. So they have the info, they take
    no action. He also said, ``We don't allow people to bully or
    harass other people on Instagram, and have rules in place that
    prohibit this type of conduct. We've also built tools that
    prevent bullying from happening in the first place, and empower
    people to manage their accounts so they never have to see it,''
    end quote. Do you agree with that?
        Mr. Bejar. I think it's profoundly misleading, because at a
    time at which the public statistic was a fraction of a percent.
    Right? One in five teens had watched it happening--like 10
    percent experienced it. And you have to bear in mind they're
    standing right there. And if this was a school, that would be
    completely unacceptable.
        Senator Blackburn. I agree. Let me give you one more.
        Talking about the executives, and I'm interested to see how
    they reacted to the information that came out in 2021 about
    their disregard for harms to minors.
        Do you think that Meta executives were motivated to do more
    or to address the problem? Or were they interested in covering
    up what was going on at Meta at the time?
        Mr. Bejar. I think you will need to ask them about their
    intentions. But I also deeply believe that actions speak louder
    than words.
        Senator Blackburn. Did any of the members of Meta's team,
    whether it was Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Cox--did any of them
    respond to your email in a way that suggested that they were
    going to take an action to correct the wrongs?
        Mr. Bejar. No. For 6 years, when I sent that kind of
    message, I would get a meeting within 24 hours to spend
    meaningful amount of time talking with them and what needed to
    be dealt with.
        And in this case, the lack of response, the meeting
    sometime later, and then the lack of action, again speaks about
    the fact that they, you know----
        Senator Blackburn. So they sloughed it off----
        Mr. Bejar. It was----
        Senator Blackburn [continuing]. Money was more important
    than protecting children?
        Mr. Bejar. I think you should ask them that question.
        Senator Blackburn. Okay. I would be interested to know who
    took responsibility for making policy determinations about
    youth safety? And one conversation you had with my staff, you
    suggested that Mark Zuckerberg had a hand in such decisions
    during your first stint at the company. But that when you
    returned, he would tell employees not to raise youth safety
    issues to him. Is that accurate?
        Mr. Bejar. In my first stint, he would be--he, Chris Cox,
    and Sheryl, would be who you raise these issues to, and they
    would engage very proactively. Having done that for 6 years,
    that's why I felt I was probably one of the most qualified
    people in the world to bring it to their attention.
        I was not aware when I brought--sent my email that it was
    hard to talk to Mark about this, but I could say that my
    experience of how the entire company was behaving when it came
    to the harms that teens were experiencing, was a culture issue
    that was grinding on that decision, which in my experience,
    prioritizing prevalence over harm, is something that Mark sets
    direction for that whole executive team. And that's why I
    realized it was necessary to appeal directly to them.
        Senator Blackburn. So they were aware.
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Blackburn. They knew that harms were taking place.
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Blackburn. They had the research that pointed this
    out--their own research.
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Blackburn. And they made a conscious decision to do
    nothing about it.
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Blackburn. Did they ever talk about profits as
    opposed to enacting these protections?
        Mr. Bejar. Not in my presence.
        Senator Blackburn. Not in your presence. Okay.
        So other than Mark Zuckerberg, who would've claimed
    responsibility for dealing with youth safety and youth harms?
        Mr. Bejar. It would have----
        Senator Blackburn. Anyone?
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. Adam Mosseri for Instagram.
        Senator Blackburn. So, Adam. Okay. Thank you for that. My
    time's expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Blackburn. Senator Welch.
        Senator Welch. Thank you very much. I just want to start by
    acknowledging my gratitude to my colleagues on this Committee
    for the work that you have been doing on a bipartisan basis.
    Senator Blackburn and I began working together when we were
    both in the House together and introduced, I think, the first
    Privacy bill.
        So I haven't been with you in this effort, but I was with
    Senator Blackburn. And I can't elaborate on the excellent
    opening statements Senator Blumenthal and Senator Hawley, that
    you made, and I guess in our phrase, I'd like to associate
    myself with your remarks.
        But I do want to, on my own behalf, express my shock at
    what's happening to our kids and how it's all because there's a
    lot of money to be made. And your questions Senator Blackburn
    revealing just the disregard for the mental health of our kids
    is--is truly shocking. So I'm all in with you on your efforts
    here.
        I'm also delighted that in Vermont, our attorney general
    has joined the lawsuit. And also I want to thank you for your
    stepping forward and providing such clarity, and also embedded
    in the concern that you have, not just for your daughter, but
    for all of our kids.
        A couple of issues that have come up from letters that I've
    received and comments--and I know you're getting the same
    questions as well is from--and I want to make sure we can do
    this legislation that doesn't do any harm. And I've been
    receiving a number of letters from folks in the LGBT community
    who are concerned that some of this legislation included the
    KOSA Act would compromise their ability to get together online
    and be mutually supportive. And I support that.
        So is it, I just want you to talk a little bit about how,
    if we proceed with the legislation, which I hope we do, we're
    not in any way going to interfere with the capacity of kids who
    legitimately are getting together, mutually supporting, none of
    the exploitive stuff. Can we accomplish that?
        Mr. Bejar. Thank you for the question. I cannot speak to
    the legislation. I think--I trust that you are extraordinarily
    qualified for that part. I think that my job here is to help
    bring light to the harms----
        Senator Welch. Right.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. That these teams are experiencing.
    And the fact that the way the company talks about them, in my
    experience, is misleading.
        Senator Welch. Okay. And that's based on all your years
    really at the forefront of Facebook.
        Mr. Bejar. Correct. And then the other thing I really would
    want you to know, and for any kid that, again, ends up having
    these awful experiences, it does not need to be this way.
    Right? There ought--Instagram is standing right next to them as
    these things are happening, and they should be able, and I know
    because I built these kinds of things for 6 years, they should
    be able to turn and say, ``Can you please help me with this?
    ''----
        Senator Welch. Right.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. And then get help with whatever's
    happening for them. And today, that is not the case.
        Senator Welch. So it's the exploitative content that's in
    the algorithms that you're focusing on, and I think all of us
    are.
        Mr. Bejar. I think you--no, it's--it's actually--it's when
    somebody says in front--you're talking at school and you're in
    the hallway and somebody comes to you and says, ``I'm going to
    make sure that you don't get invited to any party ever again.''
    Right? The only people around you hear that. And if that
    happens online, that is a post that implies a person--doesn't
    name them----
        Senator Welch. Right.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. Never gets removed, is incredibly
    distressing to the teen. And the kind of stuff I am talking
    about, because I deeply care about every child we can talk
    about in every context, is that, that child who gets like left
    out, insulted because of the reasons that Chairman Blumenthal
    outlined, that child should be able to get help independent of
    what the content is. And I believe that's important for all
    children, no matter what their gender or----
        Senator Welch. Right. No, I share that. By the way, another
    question that's come up is about encryption. And there's real
    privacy benefits to maintaining an encryption. So I would hope
    that any legislation that we have wouldn't compromise the
    privacy rights of individuals who are on the internet.
        Mr. Bejar. I deeply believe in privacy and in everything
    that I'm talking about. Right? If a child gets a direct
    message, right, that makes them uncomfortable, hurts them, it
    doesn't matter what the content is, it ought to be, ``My house,
    my rules.''
        Senator Welch. Right.
        Mr. Bejar. It only matters that that child feels
    uncomfortable, and is able to say, which is what I asked Adam,
    can we please add a button when a child receives this message
    that says like, ``Please help me.'' ``What's going on? ''
    ``Somebody's being like, really mean to me.''
        Senator Welch. Right.
        Mr. Bejar. And it doesn't matter what the content is, that
    child deserves help.
        And if somebody's initiating those messages, sending those,
    going into those kids' houses and telling them these things,
    then step number one----
        Senator Welch. Yes.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. They should know that's not
    appropriate. And if they keep doing it, then other things can
    be brought to bear.
        Senator Welch. Thank you. So kids first.
        Mr. Bejar. Absolutely.
        Senator Welch. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Welch. Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bejar for being
    here and your courage and your testimony.
        You know, I think we've met the enemy, and the enemy is us.
    We actually have six bills that Senator Durbin referred to that
    were voted out of the Judiciary Committee. But in the Senate,
    the only person who can actually schedule those bills for vote
    is the Majority Leader, Senator Schumer.
        And so I would suggest that we focus our attention on
    trying to get Senator Schumer to schedule a vote on those six
    pieces of legislation. There's--that would be a good start. But
    we can talk about it, but without that happening, nothing is
    going to happen in the Senate.
        So one wise person said one time, when trying to figure out
    a complex topic like this, follow the money.
        You keep--you've mentioned a number of times that data--do
    social media applications like Instagram and Facebook collect
    huge volumes of data about the users?
        Mr. Bejar. They do.
        Senator Cornyn. And that data is then used mainly for
    advertising products. For example, it's amazing to me when I go
    to a website and I look at something, let's say a piece of
    hunting gear, next thing I know on my Instagram, an
    advertisement from that same company shows up.
        And the way that that happens is that Instagram, Facebook,
    X or formerly known as Twitter, sells that data to companies
    who then use that information to promote their products. Isn't
    that correct?
        Mr. Bejar. I'm not an expert in that domain.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, that's what--that's how they make
    money. Right?
        Mr. Bejar. They make money through advertising.
        Senator Cornyn. Yes. Well, I was shocked to read an article
    here in the MIT Technology Review, which talks about, it's
    shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about U.S. military
    personnel.
        Duke University did a study at the request of West Point
    and others, and determined for as little as 12 cents per record
    that data brokers would sell sensitive information on U.S.
    military members and veterans. Does that--would that surprise
    you?
        Mr. Bejar. Again, this is not an area where I have any
    expertise. I mean, I have expertise from the perspective of
    being a security professional and ensuring that the systems do
    what they're set to do. But I don't have expertise on how the
    data gets brokered.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, I think it's pretty much common
    knowledge that that's the case--that this data accumulated by
    social media companies is then sold. And that's the reason why
    when you go on Instagram or Facebook, you don't actually have
    to pay a subscription or a fee.
        And they've talked about if they couldn't recover that
    revenue from selling that data about me, Chairman Blumenthal,
    the Ranking Member Hawley and others, or your daughter, then
    they would have to charge a fee in order to make this
    economical. But they don't do that because they can sell your
    data.
        And as shocking as what you have discovered, and you shared
    with us today about this one social media company, the truth is
    this is not unique to Instagram or Facebook. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. Correct. It's the entire social media sector
    that serves teens.
        Senator Cornyn. And here in the Congress, we've talked a
    lot about our concern about China's increasing belligerency,
    and militancy, and buildup of its, not only its economy, but
    its military, and threatening peace in Asia and elsewhere.
        But we're also--have talked a lot about apps like TikTok,
    for example, that are Chinese applications that then do much as
    Instagram does and vacuum up all this data, addict our children
    by using the algorithms or codes to figure out what to
    recommend to them.
        And again, this is all about the data, and all about the
    money.
        And of course, Senator Durbin mentioned the use of social
    media applications when it comes to selling drugs. You know,
    fentanyl, synthetic opioid is a single leading cause of death
    for 18- to 45-year-olds in America today. And much of it is
    transacted, those sales and promotions through the use of
    social media. And then there's other scary things like
    deepfakes. Do you know what a deepfake is?
        Mr. Bejar. I do.
        Senator Cornyn. What is it?
        Mr. Bejar. It is when you use technology to create an image
    that appears to be a person, but it's not an actual video or a
    photograph of that person.
        Senator Cornyn. And I've read in the last couple of days
    that deepfakes are now being used to basically portray young
    girls for sexual--sexual gratification using these deepfakes--
    fake, false images due to this incredible technology. Which, as
    Senator Kennedy pointed out, could be used for a lot of good,
    but it could be also used for ill, as well.
        I know our time is short here today. I just want to thank
    you for answering some of these questions. We have a lot of
    work to do here in the Senate and in the Congress, and as
    parents and grandparents and to try to protect our children.
    I'm just--thank goodness my daughters are adults now, and they
    don't live in the--you know, they aren't of an age of Senator
    Hawley's kids or others'. But the first thing we need to do,
    Mr. Chairman, is ask the one person who can actually schedule a
    floor vote on some of the bills that passed unanimously out of
    the Senate Judiciary Committee to schedule a vote. We could do
    that next week, but he's got to make it happen. Thank you.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Cornyn. I can't speak for
    Senator Schumer, but I know he is vitally interested in reform
    in this area, and I'm sure that he will make that interest real
    on the floor of the Senate at the right time. Senator Butler.
        Senator Butler. Thank you, Chair Blumenthal and Ranking
    Member Hawley. As a mom, this is a topic that I could not not
    show up to engage in.
        And I want to--appreciate your leadership, Mr. Bejar, for
    fighting for and leading on behalf of not just my daughter, but
    America's children--and I know not just your own.
        I appreciate very much also your comments to my colleague
    here, Senator Welch. Specifically, when you're talking about
    taking an all children approach. I want to direct my comments
    to really engage in a space that where maybe all children--the
    all children approach hasn't necessarily been taken. And I'd
    love to get your thoughts on some gaps that we could try to
    fill.
        Now you know and we know that the internet can be a hateful
    place. We've talked about that today.
        I understand that among your research in Meta's user
    experience, you looked into instances of identity-based
    hostilities on the platform, and you found that over a quarter
    of Instagram users under the age of 16 said they witnessed
    hostility against someone based on their race, religion, or
    identity, within the last week.
        One study published in the Journal of American Academy of
    Children and Adolescent Psychiatry looked at the issue of
    online racial discrimination between March and November of
    2020. It found that Black youth experienced increases on online
    racial discrimination that their white counterparts did not.
    And those instances of discrimination predicted worsened same
    day and next day, mental health amongst Black youth.
        Mr. Bejar, can you talk with us a little bit about what
    more you think the company should be doing to protect against
    these kinds of racial and ethnic harassments and hostility
    online?
        Mr. Bejar. Sorry. The fact that a child today, white,
    Black, any identity, right, gets called out in front of the
    entire shared audience--again, the difference between when this
    happens in a school and when it happens online. Right? Go home,
    ask him, ask your child, what would you do? What can you do?
        And there's no way for that child to say, ``This is what's
    happening to me: Somebody's being really mean to me.'' And I
    use that language because 10 years ago, Facebook knew this. We
    knew that in order to help a child dealing with an issue and
    help them, you have to hear the words that they use.
        A 13-year-old does not like to report things because
    they're worried they're going to get in trouble and get other
    people in trouble. So you tell them, ``Would you like some
    help? '' And if you look at the work that I submitted from 10
    years ago, you should be able to say, you know, ``This is like
    awful for me because of my identity''--any form of that.
        And the company should be able to take that into account to
    help that child be protected, and then get them resources. And
    then also make sure that that is not acceptable behavior in the
    community.
        Because the most tragic thing about that 20 percent number
    witnessing these kinds of attacks, is that the lack of action
    on part of the company and the very narrow definition of the
    content that they would take down, means that they're
    normalizing the behavior----
        Senator Butler. Yes.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. Children watch and children learn
    from the way other children are behaving.
        Senator Butler. And just to follow up a little bit, what
    would it look like to create a good experience? Is it the--just
    the simple, the ability to sort of exercise some agency and the
    button that you're asking--that you're making reference to?
        Mr. Bejar. It's a process. So if it's on direct messages,
    you have a button, you record that somebody initiated that
    message. And one of the questions for the platforms is, you
    know, how many, like, hateful or harassing messages should
    somebody be able to send before you tap them on the shoulder
    and you tell them that it's not appropriate behavior. Right?
        So it creates information that you can then act on----
        Senator Butler. Right.
        Mr. Bejar [continuing]. If somebody keeps doing it, then
    you know that they're up to no good, and then you can take
    further measures. And so without this data, any systems
    cannot--do not have a hope of making a safer environment for
    youth.
        Senator Butler. And what do you think has been the barrier
    for companies? We're talking about the companies that you have
    the most experience with. What do you think is the barrier to
    change, and what do you think could help to create that--to
    overcome that barrier?
        Mr. Bejar. I think they're just not incentivized to make
    this change. That's why nothing has changed. It's been 2 years.
    And, you know, our kids do not have that button in their direct
    messaging where the content doesn't matter, to say, ``This
    makes me uncomfortable.'' But you can say it about an ad, for
    example. Right? You can go into an ad and say, ``Oh, that's
    sexually inappropriate.'' Right? Or, ``It's not for me.''
        The thing about this is, until the information is
    transparent, and I would strongly encourage that that includes
    identity-based youth, because if it turns out that the overall
    number is 10 percent, but that 90 percent, 80 percent of youth
    that experience these things is because of an identity issue,
    the data is there to be had if the company makes it a priority
    and collects it. And that is at the heart of why I am here
    today.
        Senator Butler. Thank you so much, Mr. Bejar, again, for
    your leadership and advocacy on behalf of America's children.
    Mr. Chair.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Butler.
        A number of our colleagues may be joining us, returning in
    the next few minutes. But why don't we begin a second round of
    questions now. Speaking of which, Senator Coons is arriving,
    and I can give you a couple of minutes to get comfortable, or
    you can begin right now.
        [Voice heard off microphone.]
        Chair Blumenthal. Senator Coons.
        Senator Coons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
    Member, for convening this important and timely hearing. And
    Mr. Bejar Arturo, thank you so much for taking of your own
    personal experience as the senior engineer responsible for the
    Well-being section within this unbelievable platform.
        Quick survey suggests that something like two-thirds of all
    American teens are currently on Meta's platforms, in particular
    Instagram.
        I am very concerned about the likely impact on our children
    and our future. And I wanted to make sure that I had a chance
    to question you for just a few moments about a possible path
    forward.
        As you testified to this Committee today, your own research
    was hidden, was ignored, was marginalized by the very team that
    had recruited you to return to a leadership role at Meta.
        Your testimony highlights the dangerous lack of
    transparency at social media companies, the dangerous
    consequences of this ongoing global experiment with our
    children, and documents ways in which they are on the receiving
    end of both images that make them feel worse about themselves,
    and unwanted sexual advances.
        Our own U.S. Surgeon General has issued a clarion call for
    Congress to act, to recognize we are experiencing a crisis in
    mental health, in particular amongst our children, and to find
    ways to restrain these platforms and their impact.
        A bipartisan bill--I suspect Senator Klobuchar, or Senator
    Blumenthal may have referred to before--called the Platform
    Accountability and Transparency Act, that's co-sponsored by
    Senator Cornyn, and Senator Cassidy, and Senator Graham, would
    make critical advances in transparency and require platforms to
    disclose some of the public safety information that they
    currently hide.
        Can you give just two or three examples of the kinds of
    data and the kinds of insights into algorithms and how they
    work, that would be critical for our public to know, and that
    companies like Meta refuse to report?
        And do you expect that companies will ever voluntarily
    fully disclose what it is about their algorithms that make
    these platforms addictive or even dangerous for our children?
        Mr. Bejar. Apologies. Thank you for the question. I think
    that for as long as these companies get to make up their own
    definitions of what is harmful, of what is, for example,
    addiction--I looked into that issue when I was in the company
    asking around about the understanding of it.
        And what I found is that it was an internal term called
    problematic usage. And the definition of that was so narrow,
    right, that--does it really capture what we as parents all see?
        And so I think without transparency of the harms that teens
    are experiencing by their own word, right, without instruments
    that help us understand the role that social media plays in
    their lives, and without ensuring that, for example, there's
    something that when they need help, actually helps them, this
    was something that we proposed saying, let's measure our help
    by whether it helped--and that was not adopted.
        And so I think that without these things, I don't think
    anything is going to change, and that's why I'm here today.
        Senator Coons. Could you explain for us how empowering
    independent researchers would provide a much more balanced
    understanding of how safe or dangerous social media platforms
    really are, and say something about what kinds of safety
    research could be done in order to facilitate a better mental
    health and better safety outcomes for our teenagers?
        Mr. Bejar. I can speak well to that because that's what I
    did and my team did for 6 years. Right?
        Ten years ago, we brought in experts from different
    universities in the United States, including Yale, who
    understood that, for example, a 13-year-old is more liable to
    take risks, right, because of where they are developmentally,
    and they knew that it was important that the most important
    thing that you can do for a child that's having a distressing
    experience, is to make sure that they feel supported at that
    moment.
        Us as product engineers and designers are not qualified to
    give teens tools, and that's why independent research and the
    data that enables that is absolutely necessary to help our
    understanding of what people are experiencing online.
        Senator Coons. Thank you. My colleague, Senator Hawley said
    earlier that Instagram's algorithm doesn't just promote, but
    accelerates the connections between pedophiles and our kids.
    For anyone who is a caring and concerned parent, for anyone who
    cares about our community, that should be a chilling sentence.
        And the fact that you dedicated years to conducting
    research on safety, and did everything you could to get it to
    the attention of the leadership of the company, and are only
    here before us as a last gasp attempt, should motivate all of
    us to advance legislation that will unlink what I think is a
    corrosive, harmful, malign connection between algorithms, and
    self-harm, and assaults on our children. Thank you for your
    testimony today.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Coons.
        We're going to have a second round of questions limited in
    length I want to assure you, but thank you for your patience
    and your perseverance here today.
        Let me just begin by saying that the lawsuit filed by the
    Commonwealth of Massachusetts yesterday, which is one of nine
    individual lawsuits filed around the country by States, and it
    is complimentary to the Federal lawsuit filed by 33 States in
    District Court, Connecticut, joined that lawsuit--I'm going to
    ask that the complaint be made part of the record, without
    objection--says that 90 percent of young people in the United
    States--90 percent of young people use Instagram.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Chair Blumenthal. So we're talking about millions of young
    people. Are we not?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes, we are.
        Chair Blumenthal. And it cites Mark Zuckerberg saying in
    October 2021, in response to Frances Haugen's whistleblower
    testimony before our Committee, quote, ``At the heart of these
    accusations, is this idea that we prioritize profit over safety
    and well-being. That's just not true.'' He said further, ``It
    is very important to me that everything we build is safe and
    good for kids,'' end quote.
        Taking your admonition that actions speak louder than
    words, his actions certainly demonstrate the falsehood of those
    claims. Do they not?
        Mr. Bejar. They do. And if I have a moment, there's
    something from that same note that I would like to bring to the
    Committee's attention.
        Chair Blumenthal. Sure.
        Mr. Bejar [holds up document]. In the same note, Mark
    Zuckerberg wrote, ``But when it comes to young people's health
    or well-being, every negative experience matters. It is
    incredibly sad to think of a young person in a moment of
    distress who instead of being comforted, has their experience
    made worse.'' And I believe that is what Instagram does today.
        Chair Blumenthal. The reference was made earlier to the
    policies of Facebook and social media in general being data
    driven. In fact, they are dollar driven. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. My experiences of extensive data driven
    culture----
        Chair Blumenthal. Or in this case Facebook and Meta
    doctored the data to drive the dollars.
        Mr. Bejar. In my experience, what happened is this data
    that should be public, right, they shouldn't need to be here to
    talk about it, should be public about harm.
        Chair Blumenthal. You know, I was struck in the memo that
    you wrote to Adam Mosseri dated October 14th, it's now part of
    the record, you made the point, first of all--and I'm quoting,
    ``Everyone in the industry has the same problems right now.''
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Chair Blumenthal. You made that point to Mr. Mosseri and,
    in effect, urged Meta to be a leader--Instagram and Facebook
    could be a leader. And you said, quote, ``There is a great
    product opportunity in figuring out the features that make a
    community feel safe and supportive,'' end quote. ``A great
    product opportunity''--in effect, you were inviting them to
    design a better product that consumers would prefer because it
    was safer. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Chair Blumenthal. And the history of capitalism--I don't
    want to be too philosophical here, is that consumers go to
    products that are more efficient, more effective, but also
    safer. As in safer cars, safer ovens, safer washing machines,
    safer everything. And you were appealing to the better
    instincts of Mosseri and Zuckerberg and the whole team.
    Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. That is correct. I mean, Instagram is a product.
    Right? Like ice cream, or a toy, or a car.
        I ask you, right, how many kids need to get sick from a
    batch of ice cream, or be hurt by a car, before there's all
    manners of investigations? And there was an opportunity because
    they're standing right next to the teen.
        They're the company that's delivering the unwanted sexual
    advance. They're the company that's delivering the content that
    is upsetting to them, and they're standing right there. And
    they should be able--like there's the opportunity for them to
    be told, ``Hey, there's something really awful happening here.
    Will you help me? '' And be like, ``Yes I can.'' Right? And
    then use that to make the community be one that's safer.
        Chair Blumenthal. Right. And the Kids Online Safety Act is
    also about the product. It's about product design.
        If you have consumers, give them some choices about what
    they want to see and hear, so as to be able to disconnect the
    algorithms that drive something people don't want to see or
    hear. It's not censorship, it's not content blocking. Do you
    favor that approach to protecting young people and others on
    the internet?
        Mr. Bejar. Completely. In a world where, as in the third
    paragraph on my email to Mark, and in my experience from 10
    years earlier--that's 5 years of looking at this--where 90
    percent of the content that teens experience as harassment,
    right, it might not be discernible for policies. The only way
    to address this is through the kind of measures that you're
    describing. It's a product. It needs to be different. It has to
    change.
        Chair Blumenthal. And the Kids Online Safety Act is also
    about holding social media and Big Tech accountable when they
    harm people. Right now, as you've heard, they feel no sense of
    accountability in terms that really affect their bottom line,
    when Mark Zuckerberg gives his quarterly report or his
    discussion to analysts. Would you favor that kind of
    accountability so that they are held responsible?
        Mr. Bejar. Absolutely. I was, again, within the Well-Being
    Team, which I want to take a moment to say that in my
    experience, the Integrity and Well-being professionals, which
    are working on these issues firsthand, are incredibly good
    people with wonderful ideas and management couldn't be letting
    them down more. But----
        Chair Blumenthal. And----
        Mr. Bejar. Sorry.
        Chair Blumenthal. Go ahead, sorry.
        Mr. Bejar. All I was going to say, during that time, one of
    the issues that it's in one of the materials, is we talk about
    a kind of content that we know is bad for body image issues. It
    has a name, the inspiration, it's being recommended. They know
    it is being recommended. They know teens are spending a
    meaningful time looking at it, and they were unwilling as a
    product to address that. So without being to held to account
    for what they're recommending, I can't imagine that ever
    changing.
        Chair Blumenthal. And another part of our Kids Online
    Safety Act provides for more transparency about the algorithm
    so that there can be more public knowledge and also expert
    knowledge. Would you favor that approach?
        Mr. Bejar. Yes. I believe transparency is essential. And I
    will say that algorithms are as good as their inputs and can be
    measured by their outputs. So you can take an algorithm and if
    the algorithm doesn't know that a kid experiences something as
    obscene, then why won't it recommend it? And if you look at
    what it's recommending, if it's recommending obscene things
    that should be held to account, then the only way there is with
    transparency about these aspects.
        Chair Blumenthal. And before I go to Senator Hawley for his
    second round of questions, you know, you mentioned that the
    people who worked on your team, the people who work in these
    companies--to quote you, are generally good people who want to
    do the right thing.
        And I noticed in your memo to Mr. Mosseri, you said, and
    I'm quoting, ``A point, which might be good for you to know,
    which I did not put in the document reviewed by the team, is
    that many employees I've spoken to who are doing this work and
    are of different levels, are distraught, are distraught about
    how the last few weeks have unfolded. These people who love FB/
    IG''--Facebook, Instagram, I assume--``and are heart/mission-
    driven to the work.''
        They were distraught by the public exhibition of Facebook's
    knowing that it was profiting by toxic content driven at kids
    and the company, in effect, concealing and hiding the truth,
    rejecting recommendation for improvement, and rolling back
    safety measures. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. Correct. They were distraught. They were afraid
    that because the company was externally disavowing, like, body
    image issues, while at the same time there were studies and
    data that were saying otherwise, features getting proposed that
    were saying otherwise.
        They were afraid that the work would be stopped, that they
    wouldn't get the support they needed, or they wouldn't be able
    to build what they needed to build. And I say that the amount
    of investment that this company ought to do for those people,
    should be commensurate to that table of harms that you now
    have.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. Senator Hawley.
        Senator Hawley. Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Bejar, thank you for being here and thank you, you have
    been extraordinarily patient, but also incredibly forthcoming
    in your responses. And it's just been tremendously helpful. So
    thank you so much.
        I just want to come back to something that you said over
    and over, because you've been asked about it over and over to
    quote you in response to an earlier question. You said that,
    ``Changes to the product''-- and you were just explaining that
    Instagram is a product like ice cream or opioids maybe--
    ``Changes to the product would be most helpful, but there is no
    incentive.''
        And by no incentive, I mean, that really just means there's
    no money in it for the company. Right? I mean, isn't that what
    it gets down to at the bottom? If they could make money on it,
    wouldn't they do it?
        Mr. Bejar. You're going to have to ask them. I really am,
    I'm very excited for the day that Mark or Adam are sitting
    here.
        Senator Hawley. Me too.
        Mr. Bejar. And then you can ask them, ``So why did you not
    invest? '' Because one of the things that is in each
    recommendation you see there, ``Do you understand what data's
    causing these things? '' Like, here's the button that you can
    build in the systems.
        Those are not a matter of significant investment. It would
    not cost them as much. It is a matter of how much they
    prioritize the work, and whether they're willing to set their
    goals based on what teens are experiencing.
        Senator Hawley. I think that's very well said. And, you
    know, I would just add this, you commented earlier that it
    would be great to hear Mark Zuckerberg say, you know, ``We made
    $34 billion this quarter.'' That was a hypothetical you threw
    out. And then here also have to report, ``Here's the amount of
    harm that teenagers suffered.''
        I'd tell you what else I'd love to hear him say: ``We made
    $34 billion this quarter, and we have $34 billion in jury
    judgments pending against us.'' That would get their attention.
        And I just have to say, at the end of the day, if you want
    to incentivize changes to these companies, you have got to
    allow people to sue them. You've got to open up the courtroom
    doors.
        The FTC fined Facebook, what was it? A billion dollars or
    something a couple of years ago. It made no discernible
    difference to their business practices. None. They changed
    nothing. They don't care.
        But I tell you what they fear, they fear parents going into
    court and holding them accountable. That's the hammer. That's
    what happened with Big Tobacco. That's what happened with
    opioids. That's the hammer. And that's what we have got to do.
        And so I'll just say this, you know, we talked about the
    bills that were passed by this Committee. One of them is
    Senator Durbin's bill along with me, it's our bill together on
    child sexual exploitation, abuse material, CSAM exploitative
    material. And for my money, the best part about that bill is it
    contains a private right of action.
        So I'll just say this, it's November, I think the 7th
    today, is that right? I'll make you a pledge. We're going to
    vote before the end of the year.
        Before the end of this calendar year, I will go to the
    floor of the United States Senate and I will demand a vote on
    the bills that we have passed in this Committee.
        And we'll just find out. We're going to put people on
    record because I'm tired of waiting.
        I've waited 4 years. Many folks on this Committee have
    waited far longer. So we're going to vote. Any Senator can go
    to the floor and call up a piece of legislation and ask for a
    vote on it. And I'm going to do it. Before the end of this
    year, I'm going to do it.
        So we're going to find out. We have all this talk about,
    oh, we love it, we need to do stuff. Okay, fine, let's do
    something.
        And the other thing I'll just say is on the money. The
    money that is flowing into this Capitol from Big Tech is
    obscene. It's totally obscene. And if we really wanted to
    change something, we'd get the corporate money out of politics.
    We would stop these mega corporations from making political
    contributions. That would change things.
        But either way, we're going to vote before the end of 2023,
    and we'll just put people on record and we'll see where we go
    from there.
        Mr. Bejar, thank you. I hope your testimony today will
    really motivate people. I know it will motivate parents. I
    think every parent listening to this will say, ``You know what,
    that's been my experience, too.''
        And I think to have someone who is an engineer as you are,
    has your level of expertise, and been inside the company, I
    think so often parents feel isolated and they feel like,
    ``Maybe I just don't understand this technology. Maybe I'm the
    only one.'' And I just say, listening to you today, I think
    parents are going to say, ``I'm not the only one. My kid is not
    the only one.'' Yes, go ahead.
        Mr. Bejar. If I may say something about that. Parents know
    they see this every day. And the other thing that it's been my
    experience in all my years doing this, is that parents know how
    to parent.
        And sometimes when I've had a parent of a child that's been
    groomed and come and talk to me about it, about their
    experience, they're like, ``Well, I don't understand this
    technology.'' The best way I've experienced of people to think
    about these things, is just take social media out of the
    conversation.
        Like, as a parent of a young kid, you know who your kids
    are spending time with. You keep an eye out on that. Right?
    This--you get a sense of that. You want to make it very safe
    for your kid to come up to you and say, ``Hey dad, like there's
    this thing that's happening.'' That's what happened with me at
    home. And you want to make it safe for a kid to bring up an
    issue to you.
        And then when you see that these things are happening on
    these devices, right, if these things were happening at a
    school and you knew that like one in five kids were witnessing
    or one in 10 were experiencing about the unwanted sexual
    advances, and the kid turns to somebody in the school, right,
    for help, and they're like, ``Oh, I'm sorry. I cannot help you
    with that.'' As a parent, what would you do? Right? You would
    hold the school's administration into account. And that's one
    of the reasons that I am here today.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Hawley.
        I would just, again, make the point that the Kids Online
    Safety bill imposes accountability. And I want to join the
    pledge to seek a vote before the end of the year. I'm very
    hopeful we'll have not only a vote, but an overwhelmingly
    positive bipartisan vote in favor of the Kids Online Safety
    bill.
        And I challenge social media and Big Tech to come forward
    and put your money where your mouth is--put your actions where
    your rhetoric is, support this bill.
        For years, in fact, before our Committee they have said,
    ``Oh, well we want regulation, but just not that regulation.''
    And that has been their mantra, ``Trust us.''
        No longer will kids or parents trust social media to impose
    the right safeguards, and we want to give them the tools that
    their products need, so that kids can take back their lives
    online. Senator Blackburn.
        Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
    again, for your patience today.
        I wish that my colleague from Vermont was still here. It
    was 2012 when he and I started on Privacy, and filed the first
    Privacy bill in the House. And as Senator Welch was saying,
    we've been at this for a long time and we've been fought by Big
    Tech every single step of the way--every way.
        And it's been really quite amazing to see, because they
    are--and sometimes people will say, how did tech companies grow
    this big this fast? And they didn't have the guidelines, the
    rules, and restraints that the physical world has. And it's
    kind of been the Wild West. And we've seen that in how they
    choose to gather data and data mine, and use that to make the
    dollar--the eyeballs. They've got to keep these eyeballs on the
    page. The longer they keep 'em, the more money they make.
        Now I want to go back to the hearing we had with Mr.
    Mosseri in December 2021. And for the record, I want us to
    build out a little bit more of this framework because I think
    it's important to the States that have joined the lawsuit. I
    think it's important to us as we work to get the Kids Online
    Safety Act passed.
        Now, when you were with Facebook, you built a structure
    that would allow for some online governance and you put in
    place what you thought was a pretty good process for keeping
    people safe online. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. That's correct.
        Senator Blackburn. And basically, you had embarked on
    safety by design. Is that correct?
        Mr. Bejar. That is correct.
        Senator Blackburn. Okay. And you were putting in place a
    duty of care for the social media company to be responsive to
    the users that were on those platforms.
        Mr. Bejar. That is correct. And as I was going through one
    of these materials, I remember talking about bullying and
    teenagers and said that we as a company had the responsibility
    not only to the teens within the product, but to also improve
    the world's understanding of these issues so that the field
    could be moved forward. And that is the spirit with which we
    engaged the work.
        Senator Blackburn. And then in 2013, Facebook decided they
    were going to change the rules and allow kids ages 13 to 17 to
    post content on Instagram. Correct?
        Mr. Bejar. I don't know the exact date that change
    happened.
        Senator Blackburn. Okay. I think that that is accurate. And
    allowing them--what do you think changed? What motivated them
    to drop that age and allow 13-year-olds?
        Mr. Bejar. I cannot speak to their motivation, but what I
    can say is that if you look at those 2013 presentations and
    2012, one of the things that is written about there, is the
    fact that a 13-year-old, right, will do riskier behavior and
    feels things more intensely because that's where they are
    developmentally. And so making a change that potentially
    increases their audience, I think would be inconsistent with
    that understanding.
        Senator Blackburn. I find it so interesting that whether it
    was Zuckerberg, or Sandberg, or Cox, when you highlighted with
    them how readers were responding to the survey--users were
    responding and you kept trying to direct this toward the
    experience--not the perception, but the experience. And that is
    noted several times in your emails to them.
        Even though 51 percent of the users may say they've had a
    negative experience, they chose not to address that issue. And
    in most corporations allowing issues like that to just slide
    would never be tolerated. So it is left when I ask myself, why
    did they do that? It has to be because they were motivated by
    profit, over motivation to protect their users in the virtual
    space.
        I do want to ask you just a couple of things to go back on
    your memo to Adam Mosseri, the October 14th email, and you laid
    out an agenda and an opportunity for items for discussion so
    that you would make good use of your time. And you explicitly
    and specifically went through the numbers on kids that had
    received different negative interactions. And then you broke
    out the data by age, and you created a chart so that he could
    look at it in a Google doc.
        Mr. Bejar. Correct.
        Senator Blackburn. How did he respond when you broke it out
    by age? Or did he take the time to look at it?
        Mr. Bejar. It is my experience of all the years in Meta,
    that an executive gets that email, reads it thoroughly, looks
    at all of the attachments. And so it would be my expectation
    that he had read it.
        Senator Blackburn. Okay.
        Mr. Bejar. My conversation with him, he demonstrated
    understanding of everything I spoke about, and we specifically
    talked about the button for a teen girl who received unwanted
    advances.
        Senator Blackburn. Okay. Thank you for that. I think that
    what troubles me is knowing that harm was being done to kids
    and then to tell us, and I quoted back to you some of his
    comments from his testimony that he gave to us, and for him to
    allude to the fact--to give the impression that they've built
    tools that prevent these adverse activities.
        But then, you know, it's that old thing of the truth, the
    whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was true. They had
    built tools. You built them. That was true.
        But they chose to remove that. And in doing that, there are
    hundreds of children that we have met with their parents and we
    have heard about the suicides, the attempted suicides, and the
    adverse impact on these children. Thank you.
        Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Blackburn. Thank you so
    much for being here today.
        As you can tell from the turnout, there is very strong
    bipartisan support for reform because actions do speak louder
    than words.
        And my hope is that colleagues will join Senator Hawley,
    and me, and Senator Blackburn, and Senator Durbin, and others
    in seeking action on a very doable, practical, politically
    achievable bill that targets the design of this product, much
    as we would a safer car, or stopping addiction to cigarettes
    and tobacco and nicotine.
        Big Tech is very much in danger. I would say it is the next
    Big Tobacco, and I'm hoping that it will join in this effort to
    make its product safer.
        In some ways, what we face here is a garden variety
    challenge to improve the reliability and safety of a product
    that uses a black box that very few people understand, which
    makes it more complex and mysterious, but no less urgent and
    ultimately understandable by everyday Americans.
        Everyday Americans understand the harm that's being done.
    We have seen and heard it from moms and dads, from teenagers
    who have come to us and pleaded, absolutely implored us to act
    now--not at some distant point in the future.
        And so by the end of the year, I'm very hopeful that we
    will have a vote, and that it will be an overwhelmingly
    bipartisan vote, in part thanks to the testimony that you have
    offered today.
        It has been tremendously impactful and moving and very
    powerful in its science-based persuasion. You're an engineer,
    as you have stated, you're not a lawyer, but ultimately
    engineering is what may save Facebook from the perils and
    dangers that it's creating along with other social media. It's
    not alone.
        And my hope is that we will move forward so that, in
    effect, we can make Big Tech the next Big Tobacco in terms of a
    concerted effort to reduce its harm and inform the public about
    how they can do it, as well.
        So thank you for your testimony today and this hearing will
    be adjourned now, but the record will remain open for a week in
    case colleagues have any questions they want to submit in
    writing.
        And in the meantime, again, my thanks to you for your very
    impactful and important testimony today.
        The meeting is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
        [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                A P P E N D I X

    The following submissions are available at:

      https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118shrg60432/pdf/CHRG-
        118shrg
        60432-add1.pdf

    Submitted by Chair Blumenthal:

     Bejar, Arturo, email to Mark Zuckerberg, et al., October 5, 2021.     2

     Bejar, Arturo, attachment to email to Mark Zuckerberg, et al.,
        October 5, 2021...............................................     4

     Bejar, Arturo, email to Adam Mosseri, October 14, 2021, source:
        The Wall Street Journal.......................................     5

     Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Meta Platforms, Inc. and
        Instagram, LLC, November 6, 2021..............................     7

                                     [all]