The top officers of some of the world’s biggest social media companies defended their commitment to protecting young people on their platforms on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as senators pressed the tech giants for less talk and more action. 

“These companies must be reined in or the worst is yet to come,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committee’s top Republican, said

Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, featuring the CEOs of some of the best-known platforms, including Meta, TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, opened with a video of people sharing personal stories about how they, or their children, faced exploitation on social media. 

“Big tech failed to protect my child from sexual exploitation,” one parent said. 

Several people who lost children to suicide due to issues they say stemmed from social media were present in the hearing room on Wednesday – with lawmakers and the technology execs referencing the families several times throughout. 

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., pressed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about whether he has personally compensated any of the victims and their families for what they have been through.

“I don’t think so,” Zuckerberg replied.

“There’s families of victims here,” Hawley said. “Would you like to apologize to them?”

Parents attending the hearing rose and held up pictures of their children. Zuckerberg stood as well, turning away from his microphone and the senators to address them directly.

“I’m sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered,” he said, adding that Meta continues to invest and work on “industry-wide efforts” to protect children.

Meta is being sued by dozens of states that say it deliberately designs features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms and has failed to protect them from online predators.

The CEOs emphasized the existing tools they have in place on their platforms for users to report exploitation and protect children. The chief officer of Snap, Evan Spiegel, for instance, noted Snapchat does not have public friends lists and minors do not have public profile photos. 

TikTok’s Zi Chew noted there is a specific experience on its app designed for younger children while Zuckerberg pointed out controls that allow parents to limit the time children spend on Meta’s services. 

But senators – who touted their bipartisan approach to the issue – pressed the companies to back legislation seeking to hold companies accountable. 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., noted that it has been 28 years “since the start of the internet.”

“We haven't passed any of these bills, because everyone's 'double talk, double talk.' It's time to actually pass them,” she said. 

At one point, Graham went through a list of bills dealing with safety on social media platforms, asking Discord CEO Jason Citron and others whether they support the legislation. 

“If you wait on these guys to solve the problem, we're gonna die waiting,” Graham said when CEOs would not commit to backing specific bills. 

Ahead of the hearing, Snap announced it would support an act that would require platforms to report certain instances of drug trafficking. The CEO of X, formerly Twitter, Linda Yaccarino, said her site supports a bill that increases the ability of people who have experienced sexual exploitation to sue platforms. 

Republican and Democratic senators came together in a rare show of agreement throughout the hearing, though it’s not yet clear if this will be enough to pass legislation such as the Kids Online Safety Act, proposed in 2022 by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. 

The committee’s chair, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., noted at the beginning of the hearing that while Zuckerberg and Chew agreed to participate in the hearing voluntarily, Spiegel, Yaccarino and Citron had to be subpoenaed, with Citron only agreeing after U.S. Marshals were sent to his social media site’s headquarters “at taxpayer expense.”

Google’s YouTube is notably missing from the list of companies called to the Senate Wednesday even though more kids use YouTube than any other platform, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew found that 93% of U.S. teens use YouTube, with TikTok a distant second at 63%.

The Associated Press contributed to this report