00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Republicans will answer the call. All of us, every one of us is ready to
00:07work with you and our Democratic colleagues on this committee to prove to the American people while Washington is certainly
00:13broken, there's a ray of hope. And it is here. It lies with your children.
00:19After years of working on this issue with you and others, I've come to conclude the following. Social media companies,
00:28as they are currently designed and operate, are dangerous products. They're destroying lives, threatening democracy itself. These companies must be
00:40reined in, or the worst is yet to come.
00:45Gavin Guffey is a representative, Republican representative, from South Carolina in the Rock Hill area. To all the victims who
00:56came and showed us photos of your loved ones, don't quit. It's working. You're making a difference. Through you, we'll
01:05get to where we need to go so other people won't have to show a photo of their family.
01:11The damage to your family has been done. Hopefully, we can take your pain and turn it into something positive
01:18so nobody else has to hold up a sign.
01:22Gavin's son got online with Instagram and was tricked by a group in Nigeria that put up a young lady
01:33posing to be his girlfriend.
01:35And as things go at that stage in life, he gave her some photos, compromising sexual photos. And it turned
01:45out that she was part of a extortion group in Nigeria.
01:50They threatened the young man that if you don't give us money, we're going to expose these photos. He gave
01:56them money, but it wasn't enough.
01:58They kept threatening and he killed himself. They threatened Mr. Guffey and a son. These are bastards by any known
02:08definition.
02:10Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don't mean it to be so, but you have
02:16blood on your hands.
02:17You have a product. You have a product that's killing people.
02:26When we had cigarettes killing people, we did something about it. Maybe not enough.
02:31You're going to talk about guns. We have the ATF. Nothing here. There's not a damn thing anybody can do
02:38about it.
02:38But you can't be sued. Now, Senator Blumenthal and Blackburn, who have been like the dynamic duo here, have found
02:47emails from your company where they warned you about this stuff.
02:50And you decided not to hire 45 people that could do a better job of policing this.
02:56So the bottom line is you can't be sued. You should be.
03:01And these emails would be great for punitive damages.
03:04But the courtrooms closed. Every American abused by all the companies in front of me.
03:10Of all the people in America we could give blanket liability protection to, this would be the last group I
03:16would pick.
03:18It is now time to repeal Section 230.
03:23This committee has made up of the ideologically most different people you could find.
03:28We've come together through your leadership, Mr. Chairman, to pass five bills
03:34to deal with the problem of exploitation of children.
03:37I'll talk about them in depth in a little bit.
03:40The bottom line is all these bills have met the same fate.
03:45They go nowhere. They leave the committee and they die.
03:48Now, there's another approach.
03:51What do you do with dangerous products?
03:53Either allow lawsuits.
03:54You have statutory protections to protect consumers.
03:57Or you have a commission of sorts to regulate the industry in question.
04:02To take your license away if you have a license.
04:05To fine you.
04:06None of that exists here.
04:08We live in America in 2024 where there is no regulatory body dealing with the most profitable,
04:14biggest companies in the history of the world.
04:16They can't be sued.
04:18And there's not one law on the book that's meaningful protecting the American consumer.
04:22Other than that, we're in a good spot.
04:25So here's what I think is going to happen.
04:28I think after this hearing today, we're going to put a lot of pressure on our colleagues,
04:34leadership of the Republican Democratic Senate, to let these bills get to the floor and vote.
04:40And I'm going to go down, starting in a couple of weeks, make unanimous request,
04:46unanimous consent request to do CSAM, do the Earn It Act, do your bill, do all the bills,
04:52and you can be famous, come and object.
04:54I'm going to give you a chance to be famous.
04:57Now, Elizabeth Warren and Lindsey Graham have almost nothing in common.
05:00I promised her I would say that publicly.
05:04The only thing worse than me doing a bill with Elizabeth Warren is her doing a bill with me.
05:10We have sort of parked that.
05:13Because Elizabeth and I see an abuse here that needs to be dealt with.
05:19Senator Durbin and I have different political philosophies,
05:21but I appreciate what you've done on this committee.
05:23You've been a great partner.
05:24To all of my Democratic colleagues, thank you very, very much.
05:27To my Republican colleagues, thank you all very, very much.
05:32Save the applause for when we get a result.
05:36It's all talk right now.
05:37But there will come a day if we keep pressing to get the right answer for the American people.
05:43What is that answer? Accountability.
05:45Now, these products have an upside.
05:48You've enriched our lives in many ways.
05:50Mr. Zuckerberg, you created a product I use.
05:55The idea, I think, when you first came of this,
05:57be able to talk to your friends and your family and pass on your life
06:01to be able to have a place where you could talk to your friends and family
06:04about good things going on in life.
06:07And I use it. We all use it.
06:09There's an upside to everything here.
06:12But the dark side hasn't been dealt with.
06:15It's now time to deal with the dark side.
06:17Because people have taken your idea and they've turned it into a nightmare for the American people.
06:23They've turned it into a nightmare for the world at large.
06:26TikTok.
06:27We had a great discussion about how maybe Larry Ellison through Oracle
06:31can protect American data from Chinese communist influence.
06:36But TikTok, your representative in Israel, quit the company
06:41because TikTok is being used in a way to basically destroy the Jewish state.
06:49This is not just about individuals.
06:51I worry that in 2024, our democracy will be attacked again
06:55through these platforms by foreign actors.
06:59We're exposed.
07:01And AI is just starting.
07:04So to my colleagues, we're here for a reason.
07:08This committee has a history of being tough, but also doing things that need to be done.
07:15This committee has risen to the occasion.
07:18There's more that we can do.
07:20But to the members of this committee, let's insist that our colleagues rise to the occasion also.
07:25Let's make sure that in 118th Congress, we have votes that would fix this problem.
07:32All you can do is cast your vote at the end of the day,
07:36but you can urge the system to require others to cast their vote.
07:41Mr. Chairman, I will continue to work with you and everybody on this committee
07:44to have a day of reckoning on the floor of the United States Senate.
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