Image source, Reuters

Earlier, Republican Senator Josh Hawley was pointing to statistics which he says come from Meta’s own internal study.

One says that 24% of Instagram users between the ages of 13 and 15 had received unwanted sexual advances within the past seven days.

Hawley asks Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg who he fired as a result of these findings.

“I’m not going to answer that,” Zuckerberg says after repeated questioning.

“Because you didn’t fire anybody, right?” responds Hawley.

“You didn’t take any significant action."

An irritated Zuckerberg says that isn’t true.

Hawley then asks if he would apologise to the people in the audience – families of children who killed themselves or self-harmed as a result of social media content.

So, Zuckerberg stands up and addresses the audience behind him.

Not everything he says is caught by his microphone, but we do hear some of it.

“We are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things that your families have had to suffer,” he says.

It's been an incredibly tense hearing so far, and lawmakers have just announced there will be a 10 minute break.

Stick with us.

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Capitol Hill

The CEOs of X, Snap and Discord were forced into this hearing by a subpoena - but it is Meta and TikTok who have faced the most vitriol.

Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, the last two Republicans to speak, have savaged Mark Zuckerberg and Shou Zi Chew over their alleged failure to protect users.

Their fiery remarks have drawn applause and laughter in the room, most notably when Hawley just told Chew “your app ought to be banned”.

In response, Chew says he is proud of TikTok's efforts to protect data and that they have "made a lot of progress".

TikTok boss says his children don't use the platformpublished at 17:28 Greenwich Mean Time 31 January

17:28 GMT 31 January

Zoe Kleinman
Technology editor, BBC News

The situation is bleak.

We have heard examples of young people being exposed to the worst forms of harm on social media platforms, and parents overwhelmed with the responsibility of trying to protect their children.

The many tools created by the tech companies to help have not solved the problem, and politicians have been unable to agree on legislation designed to enforce a safer experience, over a period of several years.

So far we have heard more from angry US senators than the tech bosses themselves, but all five made a point of saying that they are all parents themselves.

But you have to wonder what the parents in the room today made of the admission by TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who said his own children do not use his platform - because in Singapore, where they live, there is no version of it for under 13s.

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Capitol Hill

Things got quite awkward just now in the hearing room.

Mark Zuckerberg is showing increasing frustration that he is not being allowed to provide answers with nuance as lawmakers push for quick yes or no answers.

Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley peppered Zuckerberg with questions about whether he is responsible for harming children and whether he should apologise.

He then essentially forced Zuckerberg to stand up, turn around and apologise to family members in the crowd.

Several parents held up placards of their children as he turned to face them.

We’re revisiting a particularly heated moment from when Senator Lindsey Graham had the microphone.

He gave an impassioned speech on his frustrations with the tech companies’ perceived lack of cooperation when it comes to bringing in new laws.

"I am tired of talking, I'm tired of having discussions,” he said.

“Until these people can be sued for the damage they are doing, it is all talk.”

He continued: “How do you expect people in the audience to believe that we're gonna help their families, if we don't have some system or a combination of systems to hold these people accountable?

“Because for all the upside, the dark side is too great to live with.

“We do not need to live this way as Americans.”

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Capitol Hill

Image source, Reuters

Texas Republican Ted Cruz just tore into Mark Zuckerberg about why some users are directed toward potential child sexual material on Instagram.

His team puts up a slide deck of an Instagram prompt that warns users they may be about to see CSAM and asks if they would like to "see the results anyway".

"Mr Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?" Cruz yells into his microphone.

The Meta CEO is interrupted several times as he attempts to answer, eventually pleading "give me time" to reply.

Zuckerberg promises to "personally look into it" as Cruz continues to grill him, complaining that the company's official response in several days will be a lawyerly one.

Image source, Reuters

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has come to congress today with a clear vision - that Apple and Google could play a bigger role in keeping children off platforms or ensuring they have age appropriate experiences on social apps.

Zuckerberg says Apple and Google’s app stores could be the “easiest” and “right” place to check the age of child users or let parents verify themselves, rather than have to upload ID to many different apps.

He adds that if the two giants’ app stores already require parental consent when children make payments in apps, “it should be pretty trivial to pass a law that requires them to make it so that parents have control any time a child downloads an app and offers consent of that”.

Senator Amy Klobuchar responds that such processes aren’t simple enough for parents - and the court rooms and halls of Congress offer them a smoother path for protecting their kids online.

Image source, Getty Images

Republican Senator John Cornyn wants to know about TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government.

The app is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company.

He asks TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew if the company has shared US user data with the Chinese government, as mandated by Chinese law.

“We have not been asked for any data by the Chinese government and we have never provided it," Chew responds.

Cornyn brings up a Wall Street Journal article, external published yesterday, which alleges data is being shared between TikTok and its Chinese parent, ByteDance.

Chew disputes this. “There are many things about that article that are inaccurate,” he says.

• Read more here.

A short interaction between Senator Mike Lee and Mark Zuckerberg just caused some members of the crowd to burst into laughter.

Zuckerberg said: "My understanding is we don't allow sexually explicit content for anyone."

"How is that going?" Lee responds, causing claps and laughs from the audience.

Zuckerberg goes on to say about 99% of content removed is identified by AI and he believes Meta is an industry leader in this area.

A question to each of the five social media bosses from Democratic Senator Chris Coons: Do they track the number of posts on their sites containing self-harm or suicide themes, and the total amount of views a post receives before being taken down?

Mark Zuckerberg, whose company runs Facebook and Instagram, says no, but insists the prevalence of such posts are tracked.

Linda Yaccarino says yes, and that almost a million posts on X related to mental health and self harm were removed in 2023.

Shou Zi Chew, speaking for TikTok, also says yes, and that the company categorises posts that are removed from the platform and notes whether or not posts are removed proactively by moderators or after a user report.

Evan Speigel, on behalf of Snap, says a quick 'yes', as does Discord's Jason Citron.

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Capitol Hill

Image source, Reuters

Doing more to protect children online appears to be one of the few issues that still has bipartisan support in Congress.

Lawmakers from both parties have so far focused with some urgency on their own active legislation, pushing the social media bosses present today to either express support for it or explain why they will not.

This is a big change in tone from previous Big Tech hearings, where politicians have largely railed against executives for what their companies are doing wrong and taken pot shots at the opposing side.

"It's been 28 years since the internet," Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said. "We haven't passed any of these bills."

"The reason they haven’t passed is because of the power of your companies, so let’s be really clear about that: What you say matters."

These kinds of pointed remarks are drawing reactions from the capacity crowd here.

Image source, Reuters

Senator Lindsey Graham takes TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew to task over content relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict, citing recent reports about the resignation of a TikTok representative in Israel.

Graham claims this was because “TikTok is being used in a way basically to destroy the Jewish state”.

Chew says pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic content is prohibited on the video-sharing platform.

Image source, US Senate Committee

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Discord’s Jason Citron had a tense back-and-forth, where Graham listed a number of bills which are designed to hold tech companies to account regarding child safety.

Citron tries to give longer answers, but Graham only wants a yes or no and repeatedly cuts him off saying - that must mean "no".

As he tries to answer again, Graham interrupts with: “Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.”

To some audience laughter, he says: “So here you are, if you’re waiting on these guys to solve the problem, we’re gonna die waiting”.

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Capitol Hill

As Congress grapples with how best to protect children online, dozens of competing bills have been introduced to try and tackle the issue.

Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, noted that Democrats and Republicans have come together on the legislation.

"We have found common ground here that just is astonishing," he said.

But Graham added that Congress cannot pass any meaningful laws to protect children because the tech lobby stands in its way.

"We have had hearing after hearing - and I have come to conclude, gentlemen, that you are not going to support any of this."

Senator Dick Durbin reminds those watching that three of the executives appearing today - Discord’s Jason Citron, Linda Yaccarino of X (formerly Twitter) and Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel - received subpoenas to appear before the judiciary committee today, and so they had no choice but to testify.

“Several companies initially refused to accept a subpoena," he said.

"The US Marshals Service even attempted to serve the subpoena at Discord’s office. Both actions are remarkable departures from typical practice,” Senators Durbin and Graham said in a joint statement, external about the hearing published at the end of November.

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Capitol Hill

Image source, Getty

In her opening remarks, Linda Yaccarino just endorsed a piece of legislation currently being discussed in Congress.

The Stop Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) Act, sponsored by Judiciary chairman Dick Durbin, chips away at tech companies’ legal protections to allow victims to sue them.

Most companies oppose the pulling back of their liability shields in this way.

Durbin calls Yaccarino’s endorsement of the bill on behalf of X “a victory”.

As Senator Durbin takes the first questions of today's hearing, he asks Snapchat and Discord's bosses about their measures for tackling CSAM and removing predators.

Snap Inc's CEO Evan Spiegel responds to the senator's accusation that the platform allows predators to prey on its child users by saying it usually responds to reports about them within 15 minutes.

Liv McMahon
Technology reporter

One of the biggest concerns platform bosses will have to answer questions about today is Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) - sexually explicit content depicting a child.

The term also applies to self-generated imagery and material created using artificial intelligence.

Social media platforms typically use a combination of automated and human processes to review content flagged as potentially violating its policies, including CSAM.

Industry-developed tools such as Microsoft’s PhotoDNA tool, YouTube’s Child Sexual Abuse Imagery Match (CSAI) tool and Google’s Content Safety API help platforms identify and report violating content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Many of these use image or hash matching to detect content which might be CSAM.

Hash matching sees a piece of content given a unique digital signature, or ‘hash’, so it can be checked against signatures belonging to existing content, such material in databases of known child abuse material, to find copies or matches.

The NCMEC’s Take It Down portal helps people in the US remove explicit imagery of themselves taken when under the age of 18 by using hash matching to identify and remove copies of the content if found on other platforms.

Each of the tech CEOs have finished giving their opening statements.

They all spoke about various measures their organisations have taken to help protect children online.

Next up we will get stuck into the questioning. There will be rounds of questions with hearing members allocated seven minutes each.

Stay with us.