According to a 2023 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 93% of American teenagers use Google’s YouTube video streaming service, making it the most popular platform among teens, surpassing TikTok, the runner-up in the survey, which 63% of teens reported using. However, YouTube did not have a representative present at Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee session alongside the other platforms.
Josh Surby, a spokesperson for the Senate hearing committee, stated that the five companies that appeared offered a variety of products that employed different methods to monitor child sexual abuse material. He added that committee leaders agreed to have all five witnesses attend Wednesday’s session.
The exclusion of YouTube from the session may be due to its previous scrutiny, as well as the European Commission’s request last year for more information on how it protects the physical and mental health of young users.
In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission fined Google $170 million to settle charges that YouTube illegally collected data from underage users.
YouTube’s site director, Ivy Choi, said in a statement last week that YouTube considers any content that exposes minors to harm unacceptable. She stated that the company has made its technology for detecting child sexual abuse material available to other companies and non-governmental organizations.
In 2022, YouTube reported over 631,000 pieces of content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which monitors the spread of child sexual abuse material, according to a Google report.
Apple was also absent from the session, having abandoned plans in 2021 to scan files stored on iCloud, its cloud storage platform, for child sexual abuse material, prompting activists to urge the company to do more.
A spokesperson for Apple stated in a message last August that the company’s director of child safety, Eric Neuenschwander, called child sexual abuse material “abhorrent” and that they are committed to breaking the chain of extortion and influence children are subjected to.
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