Is Zuckerberg to blame for everything?

There is a phrase that sums up the essence of a fundamental right, which is often repeated and violated: “We are all innocent until proven otherwise.”

Is Mark Zuckerberg guilty of any crime? This issue is neither far-fetched nor hypothetical, given the session of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee held on Wednesday where he was sentenced without trial in search of headlines.

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Senators questioned five executive directors of several online applications (Meta, TikTok, their sexual exploits) for more than four hours. According to researchers and several parents, behind the images they spread, there are deep traumas and suicides that were represented in the room.

Meta president apologizes to family members after hearing from senators that he has “blood on his hands”

There was fuel for everyone – Linda Yaccarino’s pettiness was remarkable, exactly in the style of the master of X, Elon Musk – but Zuckerberg emerged as the punching bag on which to vent all the wrath of legislators. They have been denouncing the situation for some time, repeatedly interrogating these specific authorities (the eighth appearance of the Facebook founder), without being able to reach legislative agreements to stop the damage.

“There’s been a lot of talking and popcorn thrown and things like that at these hearings, and I just want this thing to end. “I’m tired of this,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar lamented over the inability to provide solutions and a legal shield that prevents action against these platforms in the event of a complaint for damages. Klobuchar insisted, “If we don’t open the doors of the courts of law nothing will change.” He concluded, “Money speaks louder than we do here.”

Zuckerberg’s focus may lie in the great global success of creating what was called “the mother of all social networks.” Facebook, the seed of Meta, emerged in a Harvard dorm exactly twenty years ago, already with an original sin. In reality it was an algorithm to classify and objectify colleagues based on their intelligence.

decapitated and posted on youtube

The United States has recorded one of those real cases that are more typical for gore cinema. Justin Mohan, 32, of Levittown (Pennsylvania) was jailed after killing his father, beheading him and spreading the video on YouTube. These gruesome scenes, or streaming broadcasts of gunmen carrying out massacres, create general panic and specific fear in the influence on minors. Of the five managers who were questioned in the Senate, some very relevant people were left out. U.S. YouTube is actually the most popular app among teenagers in the U.S. According to the Pew Research Center, seven out of ten use it daily. They are followed on TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram, whose managers were involved in the inquiry. Like the case with YouTube, he also did not subpoena anyone from Apple, which angered parents by not implementing the controls on sensitive content for children that it had promised.

This has been attributed to a perceived lack of skepticism in their business when facing the problem of underage users. Although the issue was discussed, US congressmen began to focus on the harm social platforms cause to children and teens starting in 2021, when a former employee of Meta, Francis Haugen, leaked internal documents , which increased the concern. These documents revealed that the company was aware that Instagram, another of its applications, was worsening body image problems among teens.

For the record and public record, Zuckerberg is not involved in any criminal cases. Despite many controversies (misinformation, use of private data), none are criminal.

But the last sentence is one thing and the bench sentence is another. And he became the target of serious allegations.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said, “Mr. Zuckerberg, you have blood on your hands.” His party colleague, Josh Hawley, insisted that “your product is killing people.”

There was no dearth of voices that condemned these expressions as hypocrisy, or a true exercise of shamelessness.

Zuckerberg has not been involved in any criminal cases, despite several lawsuits for disinformation and use of personal data.

Both of these senators are among those who sent people to pray after these events, given the high death toll of children caused by weapons – higher than car accidents, the main proven cause of death for minors. The manufacturers of rifles and pistols are never called to trial nor are they ever heard saying that they have blood on their hands.

From an electoral point of view, attacking the technology giants seems less compromising and more profitable.

Those words from Senator Hawley prompted Zuckerberg, breaking protocol, to address the parents present, some of whom presented photos of their lost children with an apology. “I am so sorry for whatever happened to you. “No one should have to suffer what their families have suffered, and that’s why we invest so much,” he said.

This note of investment in prevention and the reference to a study that supports that social networks do not influence mental disorders (contrary to many other investigations), means that these parents were not influenced by her confession. .

“He had a gun to his head,” replied Deb Schmil, who was holding a photo of her daughter Becca, who died after taking fentanyl pills purchased through the social network. “They have had an election in which they did not prioritize the safety of children and what we see today is the result,” she explained to reporters at the end of the day.

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