WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that subpoenas have been issued to the CEOs of Discord, Snap, and X (formerly known as Twitter) to testify at the December 6 full committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation. The Committee remains in discussion with Meta and TikTok and expects their CEOs—Mark Zuckerberg and Shou Zi Chew—will agree to testify voluntarily.
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The hearing will allow Committee members to press CEOs from some of the world’s largest social media companies on their failures to protect children online.
“Since the beginning of this Congress, our Committee has rallied around a key bipartisan issue: protecting children from the dangers of the online world. It’s at the top of every parent’s mind, and Big Tech’s failure to police itself at the expense of our kids cannot go unanswered,” said Durbin and Graham. “At our February hearing on protecting children’s safety online, we promised Big Tech that they’d have their chance to explain their failures to protect kids. Now’s that chance. Hearing from the CEOs of some of the world’s largest social media companies will help inform the Committee’s efforts to address the crisis of online child sexual exploitation.”
After repeated refusals to appear during several weeks of negotiations, subpoenas have been issued to the following witnesses:
- Jason Citron, CEO of Discord
- Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc.
- Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X (formerly known as Twitter)
In a remarkable departure from typical practice, Discord and X have further refused to cooperate by accepting service of the subpoenas on behalf of their CEOs, requiring the Committee to enlist the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service to personally serve the subpoenas.
The full text of the subpoena issued to the CEO of Discord is available here.
The full text of the subpoena issued to the CEO of Snap is available here.
The full text of the subpoena issued to the CEO of X is available here.
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