Three of the most popular social media platforms among children and teens – TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube – will testify before Congress in a hearing Tuesday over their harmful impacts.
The Big Tech Honchos will testify before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security in a hearing titled “Protecting Kids Online: Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the ranking republican on the committee, said the three platforms all “play a leading role in exposing children to harmful content,” specifically noting that TikTok is an “especially egregious offender, both because they make the personal information of all TikTok users available to the communist Chinese government, and because the app pushes sexually explicit and drug-related content onto children,” Fox News reports.
This isn’t the first time TikTok has found itself in the heat of debate. The app, which has surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, had to remove 81.5 million videos – including 11.4 million in the United States – from its platform between April and June of 2021 for violating its Community Guidelines.