In what is starting to feel like a Silicon Valley field trip with slightly more expensive suits, the CEOs of major tech companies—among them Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, X’s Elon Musk, and TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew—appeared on Capitol Hill this week to testify before Senate lawmakers regarding the minor issue of protecting children online. Like schoolchildren promising they really did do their homework, each CEO dutifully expressed concern about the well-being of young users while maintaining the traditional tech-sector poise of saying much without committing to very much at all.
Mark Zuckerberg, marking perhaps his 23rd congressional appearance (but who’s counting), offered a rare gesture of contrition, apologizing to families whose children had been harmed by social media. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve all gone through,” he said, sounding like a man who just discovered human emotion and is giving it a tentative whirl. Lawmakers seized the moment to ask why platforms under his leadership still seem more optimized for addictive scrolling than mental wellness, to which Zuckerberg responded with a vague nod toward “AI safety teams” and “platform improvements” that may or may not exist yet.
Elon Musk, predictably dressed as the rebel billionaire in a black suit and blacker mood, leaned into his usual schtick of refusing to conform to pleasantries or expectations. When asked whether X is a safe place for children, Musk deflected like a pro, noting that their policy is essentially “parliament, but everyone yells,” which is basically how Congress functions anyway, so maybe there’s a strange kind of alignment there.
Meanwhile, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew performed the diplomatic acrobatics required of anyone representing a company that U.S. lawmakers keep hinting they might ban outright. He guaranteed that TikTok is safe for minors and heavily moderated, stopping just short of promising that ByteDance will one day single-handedly eliminate all teen anxiety and bring world peace.
Lawmakers, in bipartisan fashion and with great enthusiasm, expressed outrage at the idea that unregulated tech might be doing more harm than good, though they largely avoided acknowledging that they’ve passed approximately zero significant laws on the topic in recent memory. Several senators advocated for the Kids Online Safety Act, which, despite its catchy acronym and presumed good intentions, still sits comfortably in legislative limbo where it can do no actual harm to large campaign donors.
The hearing ended much like previous ones, with a few pointed questions, a handful of forced apologies, several non-binding promises to “look into it,” and the collective realization that Silicon Valley once again left with its regulatory record unblemished and its execs safely back on their private jets.
Ah yes, another day at the nation’s capital where CEOs say sorry, Congress looks stern, and absolutely nothing changes.