Senators on Tuesday accused social media company Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, of covering up harms like the sexual exploitation of children on their virtual reality platform.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law heard testimony from former Meta Platforms researchers Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage, who allege Meta suppressed research into user safety, including psychological harms for children and women.
Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., called the researchers’ allegations “shocking” and thanked them for coming forward.
“They were hired to purportedly make the platform safer for children, and what they found was a company that knew their products were unsafe. And they just did not care,” Blackburn said.
The panel’s ranking member, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, put the allegations in context of a history of whistleblowers from Meta and other congressional hearings on the company’s impact on young people.
“For too long, these companies have worked to attract kids to their platforms. They do so knowing that their platforms use algorithms that increase the risk of sexual exploitation, push harmful content, facilitate bullying and provide venues, sadly, for dealers to sell deadly drugs like fentanyl,” she said.
Sattizahn, who worked at Meta from 2018 to 2024 in integrity research, including for Meta’s virtual reality platform, alleged that the company had “no interest” in VR safety...
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