Meta Accounts For A Large Percentage Of Cases Related To Child Exploitation Material Online

Image by Craiyon — person walking on bridge with Facebook logo in the distance.

This week’s congressional hearings showcased a growing concern around social media and the types of content younger users have access to. However, the grilling and questioning of major CEOs from social networks like Meta, TikTok, Twitter, and Discord left a dire need to push forward with robust legislation to address the mental crisis plaguing the lives of our most vulnerable , and younger users.

All the CEOs faced very pointed questions about the harms of their platform and what they would do to mitigate the harm from using them. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, aka Facebook, faced the most scrutiny and toughest questions from the pack by far.

Watch the moment Zuckerberg apologized to victims' families

In conjunction with the hearings, a study by Surfshark revealed an alarming surge of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online between 2020 and 2022. Specifically, exactly 83 million cases of child exploitation have been reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).