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After 20 Years of Facebook, Lawmakers Are Still Trying to Fix It

Mark Zuckerberg celebrated Facebook’s birthday with a grilling from senators demanding more protections for children. New laws to regulate social platforms don't seem any closer.

It’s been 20 years since Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg released a program called Thefacebook to his college community, launching a company that would capture over 3 billion users, flirt with a trillion-dollar valuation, and make so much money that it’s now kicking back a dividend to shareholders. The hearing, dubbed Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis, was a reminder to Zuckerberg that after 20 years his company is still, despite his excitement about creating metaverses and artificial general intelligence, at its heart a social network. In addition to Zuckerberg, this week’s hearing called Discord’s Jason Citron, X’s Linda Yaccarino, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, in theory to solicit testimony that could advance those bills.

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