Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter cited for privacy violations and moderated failures

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• Sep 15, 2022 | Poonam Nath

Executives from Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter were questioned by the US Senate Homeland Security Committee on privacy and moderation lapses on their respective platforms in recent years.

Digital Desk: The US Senate Homeland Security Committee interrogated officials from Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter about recent privacy and moderation problems on their platforms, claiming that companies continue to "avoid providing very essential information with us."

The panel heard testimony from TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas, Twitter General Manager of Consumer and Revenue Jay Sullivan, Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, and YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan late on Wednesday.

"To be honest, I'm frustrated that all of you (who) have a prominent seat at the table when these business decisions are made were not more prepared to speak to specifics about your product development process, even when you were specifically asked if you would bring specific numbers to us today," committee Chair Senator Gary Peters lamented.

TikTok COO Pappas testified before the lawmakers for the first time.

According to TechCrunch, the session looked into the platforms' impact on national security as well as domestic extremism and misinformation around Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and China.

Senator Alex Padilla interrogated Meta's CEO about safety initiatives in languages other than English.

"According to your evidence, you have over 40,000 workers working on trust and safety concerns. "How many of those people are worried about non-English language content, and how many are worried about non-US users?"Padilla inquired.

The CEO declined to respond.

Sullivan also declined to directly dispute allegations that Twitter "willfully falsified" material sent to the US FTC. Twitter is embroiled in a legal fight with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

"I can tell you that Twitter strongly denies the allegations," Sullivan added.

TikTok also declined to confirm that the corporation, including ByteDance staff, delivers user data to China.

Senator Josh Hawley also questioned Pappas on the company's ties to the Chinese government.