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Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

545 points by speckx 9mo ago

HelloUsername 9mo ago
Related? "Jury told that Meta, Google 'engineered addiction' at landmark US trial" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959832 10-feb-2026 385 comments
- bilekas 9mo ago
  One is congress the other is a civil case brought against FB IIRC.
- SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
  Definitely related. They mention in the article that they're trying to get ahead of his testimony today in this trial, and want people to keep in mind when they read about it in the news that they don't think he can be trusted.
pimlottc 9mo ago
NB use reader mode on mobile Safari, otherwise the tables are illegible
- xiphias2 9mo ago
  Desktop site on Chrome mobile
NickC25 9mo ago
Can't hold him accountable. He's too wealthy and owns too many congressmen/women.
- koakuma-chan 9mo ago
  congresspersons
  - Fulgidus 9mo ago
    congresspigs
    - delichon 9mo ago
      Your slur on pigs is unkind. What have they done to you? I knew a pig and she never lied to me or passed legislation. She did accept a contribution from a lobbyist though.
bilekas 9mo ago
> The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act, which will hold their feet to the fire and force them to protect children and teens. This is no surprise he lied, that's just what businesses do, their bottom line for the shareholders is all that matters. But the answer is NOT the "Kids Online Safety Act" Legislation will definitely help things, regulations more so, but that safety act is not the answer ie Age Verification. So rewrite it, do your job, use the researchers and experts available to you to bring a bill proposal that doesn't have special interest groups or lobbyists behind it and then we can see some improvement.
- brightball 9mo ago
  After 25 years heavily paying attention to political news, the "bad thing happened" followed by "we have to pass this bill that won't fix it but I want to capitalize on the news cycle to gain support anyway" cycle should just be assumed now.
cies 9mo ago
[flagged]
- llm_nerd 9mo ago
  No, he did not, and you're repeating some misinformation bit of nonsense that you find in anti-vax ignorance echo chambers. When he first learned about mRNA vaccines he misunderstood them and was concerned about vaccines "basically modifying people's DNA and RNA to directly encode in a person's DNA and RNA basically the ability to produce those antibodies". This is technically ignorant to the point of being nonsensical, but to be fair he was a layman speculating based upon very limited knowledge about something he just learned about, and it was a casual discussion during the very early days. And let's be fully clear for the antivaxxers among us: Every single plutocrat that pulls the levers that get you riled on your march to becoming Soylent Green got the vaccines. Every single power broker got the vaccines. The antivax nonsense is specifically the realm of the bottom-feeder easily conned contingent, manipulated into some bit of nonsense or other .
  - ifyoubuildit 9mo ago
    > Every single plutocrat that pulls the levers that get you riled on your march to becoming Soylent Green got the vaccines. Every single power broker got the vaccines I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am curious how you came to know this so confidently.
    - Covzire 9mo ago
      The amount of regret that exists doesn't fit either, don't forget Biden's warning that those who don't take it will die, the exact opposite of all the fear mongering happened and it's despicable people keep telling all the same lies.
      - llm_nerd 9mo ago
        "Regret"? You mean the grifters conning the waves and waves of incredibly stupid Americans? Do you think the million or so people who died of COVID also might have some regrets? Biden didn't warn that "those who don't take it will die" -- again, why do you people lie constantly about everything? -- he warned that it would be a winter of severe illness and death, which is absolutely, unequivocally, empirically true! In those early days hospitals were legitimately overcrowded with severe cases. Are we pretending that didn't happen now? I mean, you guys really are. It's incredible. I get that America is doing a speed-run to being the dumbest idiocracy on the planet, so you guys have this momentary period where you think you "won". Just be aware that to the entire rest of the planet you are a worldwide farce. A "how not to", and it's incredible how much the super rich conned the masses of the stupid to continually act against their own best interests.
mystraline 9mo ago
And we *know* why, because of billionaire. But lying in Congress IS perjury. He should be in jail for contempt, and then then personally tried for perjury. Its a felony with punishment up to 5 years.
- 1over137 9mo ago
  But we're talking about the USA here. Was such a thing ever done to someone of analogous stature in history?
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - js8 9mo ago
    I recently watched Animagraffs' videos on Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam. It's interesting that no one has asked, "was anything analogous to that ever done before"? Remember, we're talking about USA here.
  - mystraline 9mo ago
    Absolutely, yes. When China's civil war with Chaing Kai-Shek happened, the communists won. After that, landlords, business owners, and industrial owners were presented with an ultimaturm, of which many took. And that was to return to being a worker, or be jailed. Given how capitalists amass wealth and options to evade all governments, this does seem like a valid solution. A modern viewing is after Jack Ma (CEO of Alibaba) publicly criticized the monetary policy of China. He lost most of his standing, and the attempt of an IPO for his payments company. Note that he lives and is still CEO, just not as a Influential power in China.
    - khalic 9mo ago
      lol are you seriously trying to frame the Chinese cultural revolution as something good? It was an anti-science, barbaric and corrupt movement
      - 9mo ago
buellerbueller 9mo ago
Elect representatives, regardless of party, who will hold to account those who harm us for profit. I do not agree with Thomas Massie on a lot of things philosophically, but I respect him for pushing for the release of The Epstein Files.
wongarsu 9mo ago
Reading through the list, I really wouldn't call most of them lies. There are some lies, but it's mostly 'very precisely worded statements' and statements that were arguably made in bad faith, but are not technically false. With some of them I am not even sure how their 'evidence' column is supposed to refute the quoted statement. In my opinion being this broad is really hurting the message. They should concentrate on the actual lies, not dilute the list with "In 2024 Zuckerberg told congress that accounts of under-sixteens are private by default, but they only rolled that feature out in 2024, seven years after learning of the harms of not doing that. He lied!"
- lelandfe 9mo ago
  This broad…side, perhaps?
- InitialLastName 9mo ago
  It's worth noting that their argument isn't "Mark Zuckerberg perjured himself and needs to be jailed for it" because he said something strictly and knowingly false. It's "we shouldn't trust Mark Zuckerberg's testimony because he (and Meta more widely) have a long (long, long) history of being knowingly deceptive about the harms of their product".
  - delichon 9mo ago
    If they had said that instead of "lied to congress" they would have lost less credibility with this reader. But then they wouldn't have gotten the click.
    - InitialLastName 9mo ago
      The word "lied" has a lot of layers[0] other than "knowingly said an outright falsehood". He may not have told an outright, provable falsehood (although some of these examples are close). He certainly has a long history of statements to Congress that are baldly misleading or belied by Meta's own internal records. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Types_and_associated_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Types_and_associated_terms
FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
Remember when lying could get you in trouble? Lying has become normalized to such an extent that reality is unknowable. Just listen to any regime press conference on any day. Just pick any random day and listen. The hyperreal is here.
- salemh 9mo ago
  [dead]
- khalic 9mo ago
  Oh don’t forget that calling someone a lier is consider off limits too!
- CrzyLngPwd 9mo ago
  It's always been this way, though. From tall tales of hunting or combat, the town crier spread propaganda from the lords to the public.
  - FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
    Just like apples/fruit from medieval times were tart and sour and full of seeds, and through generations of selective breeding are now super sweet and not necessarily still good for you. The old town crier is very removed from todays social media. Yes, a newspaper from 1800's was pretty biased. But does that justify todays hyper targeted algorithms as a-ok? That something happened in the past is not a good argument that it is a-ok today.
    - hrimfaxi 9mo ago
      The argument wasn't "this is okay", the argument was "your past where the liars were punished never was". > Remember when lying could get you in trouble? > It's always been this way, though.
      - FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
Aurornis 9mo ago
> The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act Just last week there was uproar because Discord was going to require age verification to join adult themed servers and bypass content filters. This is how people are getting baited into inviting these restrictions and regulations into their services: By believing it’s necessary to hurt their enemies like Mark Zuckerberg combined with “think of the children”. It’s still sad to these calls for extensive regulation and oversight getting upvoted so much on Hacker News. Every time you see someone calling for regulation for kids online, remember that the only way to tell kids and adults apart is to force everyone to go through age verification. Before you start thinking that you don’t care because you don’t use social media, remember that you are reading this on a social media site. The laws aren’t going to care about whether or not you think Hacker News qualifies as social media.
- mrsssnake 9mo ago
  The only way to get rid of domestic abusers in your neighbor is to detonate an atomic bomb at the town center.
- raincole 9mo ago
  I wonder if one day when people hear "censored internet" the first country that comes to mind will be a western one (probably the UK, but the US is not off the table either) instead of China.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    It already does for me because I live here. Keir Starmer is desperately unpopular and yet he wants to suppress why people do hate him. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/27/starmer-least-popular-uk-prime-minister-poll/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/27/starmer-leas...
    - u02sgb 9mo ago
      The existence of that article surely suggests there is no censorship of the information about his unpopularity?
raincole 9mo ago
> > The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act Really? Even if we ignore all the implication of censorship and surveillance state, lying to the congress is already a crime. It's already regulated. If he can get away with it why another act would be different?
- blacklion 9mo ago
  Yes, it is what always puzzles me: we have regulations, they don't work because everybody can find loopholes in them, or enforcement is not strict, but lets add more regulations instead of really implementing previous ones. It is everywhere. More and more layers of regulations which don't work, not enforceable or nobody care to enforce them, but lets add more in same vein.
  - mystraline 9mo ago
    It shouldn't surprise you. Once a company starts bribing politicians with campaign funds, they have a foot in the door. Once they have the paid lobbyists, then they present company-written policy documents and laws that just need a sponsor. Those laws are crafted explicitly for specific holes only the company can effectively navigate. But on its face, looks completely fair. Law gets passed, and the law is really a moat 'pulling up the ladder' for any other company trying to encroach on their space. Naturally, its written such a way that will pass basic scrutiny.
    - blacklion 9mo ago
      It is not only about regulating huge businesses. For example, EU has effective definition of electric bicycle, electric moped and electric motorcycle. It is three different classes of vehicles, with strict technical thresholds for properties. You always can say what you see. These three classes of vehicles require different licenses (no license for bicycle, AM or B for moped and A1/A2/A for motorcycle), different insurance, different equipment (helmet). They can be ridden on different roads (and bicycle roads), etc. Here, in the Netherlands teenagers (their parents) buy "Fat bikes". Thy are effectively electric mopeds (1000W+ of power, mode when you don't need to pedal, etc), but of course it is hidden mode, and "by default" they are limited as electric bicycles. Only saddle is not adjustable, they weight 20+ kg and it is impossible to ride them as bicycles, you will damage your knees very quickly. So, all teenager ride them as if they be bicycles (no helmets, no license plates, no insurance, no nothing, on the bicycle paths), in moped mode: very fast (faster than 30km/h), powerful, etc. Everybody sane hate them. Every city discuss how to ban them completely. Every magistrate want new regulations. But each new definition of "fat bike" is leaky! There is NO any bribing or "sponsors". But everybody wants some new regulations when there are perfectly clear regulations. Problem is, you need to do checks of these bikes. You need confiscate vehicles which violate rules, you need raids. Police don't want to do this. Ok, some Magistrate will come up with definition of "Fat bike" to ban them. What will change? Nothing. Now police has all legislations to regulate this madness. But it don't want to spend resources for this. What new definition of "fat bike" will change? Nothing.
blululu 9mo ago
The css on iOS safari is totally busted. The first column is fixed and tiny so it makes the row really tall.
- luxuryballs 9mo ago
  yeah my experience on iOS was harmed by this website, Congress must take action!
- probably_wrong 9mo ago
  Firefox on Android too. Reader mode helps a lot, but still.
lm28469 9mo ago
[flagged]
giancarlostoro 9mo ago
Remember when he bought IG and one of the conditions was that he not merge IG / FB but its definitely merged behind the scenes. IG somehow knows your FB and vice versa. Also, when one goes offline, both go offline.
- dudefeliciano 9mo ago
  not just behind the scenes with account manager, but instagram content and comments get pushed to facebook as well
- eschulz 9mo ago
  Well, there is an explanation here - he simply was misleading regarding his intentions.
  - eukara 9mo ago
    it's called deception, yeah
- kakacik 9mo ago
  He is a manipulative POS from the start (remember the 'dumb f_cks' quote? How much more do you need to know about the person which is still the same person we discuss?). High level and high functioning sociopath. So is everybody else up there regardless of the name of the company, only their quality of PR and luck varies. Now are you happy that most of this forum works for similar or worse people, can you internally accept that and come back to work like nothing is happening? Or do you need to invent a bit of alternate reality where its not your/your company case somehow and you are on good moral mission because XYZ? Not that many people can actually properly do this from my experience, most need to somehow feel they are on the good side of history even if they were doing/helping very questionable stuff to be polite. Just one small example - companies living from ads.
- dheera 9mo ago
  FB knows your eBay, for that matter. When I search for something on eBay I get ads on FB for it. Even if they are not merged, corporations can share your data behind the scenes and you are forced to unilaterally, without negotiation, accept that ToS to use these sites.
chistev 9mo ago
What did he lie about?
- smt88 9mo ago
  The article answers that question. Do you want commenters to summarize the article for you? It would be easier to just click and read for yourself
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  It’s in the first paragraph.
bronco21016 9mo ago
I haven't paid a lot of attention to this issue but after reading some of the statements in the article I can't help but agree with Tech Oversight's conclusions. It's just anecdotal but recently, when mindlessly scrolling reels, (yes, bad enough already) I came across a reel that was unquestionably sexually explicit (in USA, I think policy varies on locale). I reported the account and reel because after clicking on the account there was even more material. This wasn't just a "creator" promoting their adult site with suggestive content. The account had several reels where the preview image was just black but after 2-3 seconds an adult image would appear. Facebook closed my report with "no further action required" saying the content does not violate their policy. I'm sure they have an absolute tsunami of reports to go through and I do not envy the humans tasked with this work. However, it seems pretty clear to me they are not effectively achieving their publicly stated goals of moderating the content on their platform.
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  I know exactly what you’re talking about and it has been driving me nuts for years. They constantly go up there and say “it’s cool we totally have these amazing algorithms that solve the problem,” then when they don’t solve the problem they just shrug and go “well we’re just so big you can’t actually expect us to do what we said we would. We’re doing decent enough!” YouTube is another great example of this. Fine, be smaller. If I own 10,000 apartment buildings and one of them collapses killing dozens and injuring more, I don’t just get to shrug and go “sorry folks, it’s not reasonable for you to expect me to follow all the rules on all my properties. I’m too big.”
  - tantalor 9mo ago
    Too big to succeed.
  - morissette 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - jobs_throwaway 9mo ago
trolleski 9mo ago
Zuck lied? Impossible!
blitzar 9mo ago
Lock him up. Then he can pay the pardon bribe.
- ddtaylor 9mo ago
  Infinite money glitch life hack. That's why we call it Hacker News!
jaybyrd 9mo ago
i remember when i was a kid i used to think if you broke the law you went to jail. i miss being a kid.....
- 4ggr0 9mo ago
  the financier's island files gave me a huge dose of this. i always got the feeling that laws don't really matter for truly rich people, now i'm convinced. which means that we need different methods than law to handle such people.
  - buellerbueller 9mo ago
    We just need to elect a wave of politicians that will hold the wealthy accountable. That's the single issue we should all be voting on at the moment. Once the lawless are brought to heel, and their wealth kicked out of politics forever, then we can actually start solving the other problems that face us.
    - thmsths 9mo ago
      Or maybe stop allowing people to pay for their own legal defense? Public defenders for everyone and then we will indeed all be equals before the law. Billionaires being able to outspend the prosecution by such a wide margin that they can turn the legal battle into a war of attrition that they are likely to win is a complete travesty of justice. But I am not holding my breath on that one, too many people benefiting from the current system.
    - 4ggr0 9mo ago
      i wish that would be the solution. mind you, i am not only talking about the sexual abuse. there's also corruption, tax evasion(excuse me, *optimization of course), closed-door deals, arrangements etc. i unfortunately don't believe we'll ever be able to vote these things away. what do votes do if we have over 3000 billionaires worldwide who treat the world like their playground. add to the 3000 the other thousands of people who "only" have 100M+. good luck finding voters when the people with money can launch huge marketing(aka. propaganda) campaigns and control virtually every social media platform, news site, radio- and tv channel, podcasts and what have you. something i only recently heard about and am thinking a lot about is, 'The purpose of a system is what it does'. JE feels like a symptom, not a disease.
jacobsimon 9mo ago
Not trying to defend Meta at all here, but this report is also lying. For example, it says "79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms." But the source it cites actually says 79% of online social media cases occurred on Facebook and Instagram. So this stat is probably just a reflection of Meta's market share of social media.
- blitzar 9mo ago
  Meta's market share of child sex trafficking.
  - jacobsimon 9mo ago
    I should say market share of social media* updated lol
- devsda 9mo ago
  > But the source it cites actually says 79% of online social media cases I'm curious about what other conclusion you may have reached when reading "on Meta's platforms". Offline by nature cannot happen on Meta's platforms right and any site that facilitates interaction can be considered social media.
  - jacobsimon 9mo ago
    It’s just an incredibly different statement. It’s like saying 79% of Americans voted for Trump vs 79% of registered Republicans voted for Trump, they lead to very different conclusions.
  - retsibsi 9mo ago
    > I'm curious about what other conclusion you may have reached when reading "on Meta's platforms". The claim was "79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms", so they probably took it to mean that 79% of all sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta's platforms. I don't mean to be a smartarse (well maybe a little). But why wouldn't they interpret it that way, when that's exactly what it says? "X% of all Y happened on Z" doesn't implicitly mean "X% of online Y happened on Z" just because Z is an online platform.
navigate8310 9mo ago
I think the heart of the issue is mental health not being tangible enough for a common man, not being able to easily see and identify the plethora of spectrum like how a simple cough and cold flu might look and feel like; is what drives these companies to billion dollar valuations. Until the society changes its outlook towards mental wellness, no amount of regulations or Government oversight might solve this and we'll continue to have the next generation of Meta or TikTok ready to kill humanness in humanity further.
gverrilla 9mo ago
Americans are ok with Trump and ICE and gun-nation and schoolshootings and bombing brown-skinned people in far away countries: nothing is going to happen with Zuckerberg.
josefritzishere 9mo ago
Lying to congress is actually crime, even if you are not under oath. I know it doesnt look like it because it's rarely enforced but it's a felony. https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/what-are-the-penalties-for-lying-to-congress/ https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/what-are...
zer00eyz 9mo ago
Letter writing (with faster delivery), Book printing, Radio, Television, Music Distribution (records and tapes) -- This is a list of items that when new, were going to be the downfall of society. Im sure a few of you are old enough to remember the satanic panic of the 80s and the PMRC in the 90's. None of these turned out the way people thought. There is nothing new under the sun, and this response looks very much hyperbolic in the face of manipulated data and "feelings" over "facts". That isn't to say that there aren't things wrong with Facebook, or social media, but this keeps getting attention when it is no where near the top of the list.
LightBug1 9mo ago
"We're the billonaire CEO's, bitch" *bitch noun 1. - commonly used in reference to the government and the people.
phendrenad2 9mo ago
I learned not to trust uckerbergzay when the ambridgecay alyticaanay scandal broke, and you had to jump through mental gymnastics to find a hypothetical where he wasn't directly involved in the planning of it. I am reminded again every time I post about this and the bots show up to mass downvote my comment because it says "ambridgecay alyticaancay" (without the Pig Latin).
jazz9k 9mo ago
[flagged]
- butterbomb 9mo ago
  [flagged]
charles_f 9mo ago
One thing that I would recommend is to avoid weaving the actual lies with statements that are subject to judgement. For example, the first two rows are about the level of investment in protection tools, and are claimed as lies because of the ineffectiveness of these tools. Both sides can be true simultaneously. You can invest a lot and produce no results. When I read that, I thought they were grasping at straws. Then carried on reading and found real, unchallengeable lies, nevertheless had a little alarm in my head that these might be interpretations more than facts. It would probably be good to either remove those borderline "understatements" or "distortion of the truth" ; or present them as things we can't trust given all the other lies.
- close04 9mo ago
  > Both sides can be true simultaneously. You can invest a lot and produce no results. Evidence show that Meta can be very effective at achieving the results that drive profits. It's already suspicious when they fail exactly at the ones that would lower profits. Even more when you consider the rest of the evidence which shows intention to hide the "failure". That breaks trust and you're just choosing to believe that the lie that they got caught with must have been the only one. Short of universal laws almost anything can go both ways. But when one is overwhelmingly more likely you can make a concession and agree Zuck was lying a lot in there. You're bending over backwards to muddy the waters with vague "it could go both ways" statements.
  - charles_f 9mo ago
    Likely a lie but also they do have tools, they're just inefficient. When you have 10 other examples that are undeniable, might as well remove the ones that can be challenged, let alone open with it, or you open yourself to very standard rebuttal PR strategies that focus on these.
    - gtowey 9mo ago
      > Likely a lie but also they do have tools, they're just inefficient This is the exact problem, they could solve the issue by spending a lot more money. They could hire enough human content reviews to keep up, they could force all content to go through review before it can be posted. But those things break their business model. If you take away their ability to externalize these cost by harming society, it turns out Facebook isn't a viable business. From this perspective, every dollar they make, all those billions that Zuckerberg is "worth" is simply value extraction at our expense. Which is why he will do absolutely everything to protect it. It's so far beyond giving him the benefit of the doubt. To know what he knows and continue to operate Facebook like this is moving into the territory of being pure evil.
shevy-java 9mo ago
I think superrich people who lie to congress (aka the general public), need to go to jail for a mandatory time. Even if it is only for one week.
nickdothutton 9mo ago
>79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. This sounded very high, and I was interested to know how they understood what the total (100%) figure was, given the presumed underground nature of the activity. Clicked on the link for the source. The statement is false. By all means hold these companies to account but sensationalism isn't going to help. Full disclosure: I have never had a Facebook account and couldn't care less whether Meta exists or not.
- pbhjpbhj 9mo ago
  I don't necessarily doubt it's false, but if you have something of your source material, or your reasoning then it would make it possible to agree.
  - rappatic 9mo ago
    That link leads to a PDF which says "The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram." This is a completely different statistic: the percentage of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media vs. the percentage "of all child sex trafficking."
    - y-c-o-m-b 9mo ago
      Perhaps it's an AI written/assisted article because they clearly added the two percentages together to come up with the poorly summarized claim.
- Aurornis 9mo ago
  I caught the same thing. Clicking on the link gives this text: > 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. In 2019, the National Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that Instagram was the leading platform for child grooming in the U.K. The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram The study was only looking at sex trafficking victims in the UK in 2020 who were recruited on social media platforms. So 100% of the victims in the study were recruited on social media platforms. The breakdown is basically a map of which social media platforms were popular in the UK in 2020. It's a blatant lie to claim that this number represents all sex trafficking victims.
dabedee 9mo ago
I'm usually the first one to bash Facebook and its main liar in chief, but the first couple of paragraphs mix damning evidence with weak stretches (as mentioned by others here). The bad stuff is genuinely bad enough. Meta's own research found Instagram worsened body image for 1 in 3 teen girls [1]. They killed a deactivation study when results looked bad, with one employee comparing it to tobacco companies burying research [2]. They had a 17-strike policy for accounts involved in sexual solicitation [3]. And they ran growth strategies explicitly targeting kids under 13, segmenting youth into "Kid (6-10), Tween (10-13), and Teen 13+" [4]. [1] 2019 Instagram slide presentation, "Teen Mental Health Deep Dive" [2] Meta internal deactivation study (unnamed employee quote from unsealed docs) [3] Testimony of Vaishnavi Jayakumar, former Instagram Head of Safety and Well-being [4] Meta Internal Evidence Exhibit 45
ddtaylor 9mo ago
> The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act The government fails is the problem and the only solution is more government.
hosteur 9mo ago
I cannot read the table on mobile.
slibhb 9mo ago
There is limited evidence for social media being a problem. This whole thing is a garden-variety moral panic. Particularly troubling is the constant vitriol aimed at Mark Zuckerberg. I admire Mark for ignoring the whole thing, being a family man, and continuing to build products. If people want to get up-in-arms about something, it should be online gambling. We've run the experient there. The harms are clear and the world is better when gambling is highly restricted.
tiffanyh 9mo ago
Just something to keep in mind… Testifying before Congress is brutally stressful. Even the most prepared CEOs can freeze up, lose their train of thought, or misspeak under that kind of pressure. And the media often hunts for “gotcha” lines without acknowledging how easy it is to make an unintentional misstatement in that setting. Note: I’m not weighing in on whether Zuckerberg’s statements were accurate ... I’m just pointing out the pressure dynamic that often gets overlooked.
- himata4113 9mo ago
  [dead]
- consp 9mo ago
  He also gets the best training money can buy and CEOs make enough to justify them giving a perfect presentation. It's not like you ask some lone employee to do it. The proverbial buck stops somewhere.
  - NickC25 9mo ago
    He also gets the softest questions money can buy, because he's bought practically every congressperson.
ddlsmurf 9mo ago
I'm not American legal system expert, but if I'm not mistaken, this isn't just lies and being deceptive, this is called perjury and is a crime no ?
- tejohnso 9mo ago
  Yeah, but the stock might take a massive hit if this were seriously pursued, and it might even have further consequences in the markets. Let's keep our priorities straight.
  - ddlsmurf 9mo ago
    I can only hope you're being sarcastic, because it does seem to hit close to what's actually happening
cindyllm 9mo ago
[dead]
GlibMonkeyDeath 9mo ago
https://senate.ucsf.edu/tobacco-ceo-statement-to-congress https://senate.ucsf.edu/tobacco-ceo-statement-to-congress Tobacco CEO's Statement to Congress 1994 News Clip "Nicotine is not addictive."
- fainpul 9mo ago
  Richard Nixon: "I'm not a crook." [1] Bill Clinton: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." [2] Donald Trump: let's not even start. I find it weird that institutions still insist the people they question must swear to tell the truth. It obviously doesn't help. Quite the opposite, it makes the liars look stronger (until they're caught). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton%E2%80%93Lewinsky_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton%E2%80%93Lewinsky_scand...
  - antonvs 9mo ago
    *liars (The spelling’s not logical, just an historical quirk of English)
    - fainpul 9mo ago
      Thanks
rappatic 9mo ago
Half of these examples aren't even lies. The right column of this table is full of whataboutisms and fabricated statistics. For example, > Zuckerberg: "We don't allow people under the age of 13 on our service. So if we find anyone who's under the age of 13, we remove them from our service." > What the evidence says: Internal document stating the goal for Meta to be the most relevant social products for kids worldwide. To do so, Meta will focus on "each youth life stage, ‘Kid’ (6-10), ‘Tween’ (10-13), and ‘Teen’ 13+." The fact that Meta eventually wants to appeal to kids doesn't mean they currently allow kids on their platform. And here's an example of a fabricated statistic: > 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. (Link) That link leads to a PDF which says "The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram." This is a completely different statistic: the percentage of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media vs. the percentage "of all child sex trafficking" (the vast majority of which does not occur through social media). Doing stuff like this destroys the website's credibility when it comes to the actual lies.
vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago
Does anybody believe congressional hearings are an honest effort at dealing with issues? It’s just show business to satisfy the voters. And the role of the CEO is to take a beating for show while knowing that nothing will happen to them or their business.
alex1138 9mo ago
Mark Zuckerberg also lied to Aaron Greenspan (thinkcomp on here) and the Winklevosses and, oh, users (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719) and the public (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198) multiple times
voxelc4L 9mo ago
Not that congress or the DOJ would do a single thing about this, but here are the well defined consequences for perjury in front of congress... https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/98-807 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/98-807 Section 1001(a) states: "[I.] Except as otherwise provided in this section, [II.] whoever [III.] in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, [IV.] knowingly and willfully— [i] falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; [ii.] makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or [iii.] makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; [V.] shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A [sexual abuse], 109B [sex offender registration], 110 [sexual exploitation], or 117 [transportation for illicit sexual purposes], or section 1591 [sex trafficking], then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years."
yuliyp 9mo ago
Of the ones that I know something about, almost each one is a stretch to call a lie, or just downright misleading. - 'Internal document stating the goal for Meta to be the most relevant social products for kids worldwide. To do so, Meta will focus on “each youth life stage, ‘Kid’ (6-10), ‘Tween’ (10-13), and ‘Teen’ 13+.’"' for instance is talking about a slide deck for Messenger Kids, which was an explicit focus on building something that was COPPA-compliant and independent of the main Facebook/IG/Messenger products. It's not at all inconsistent with the claim of not allowing people under 13 on the main sites. - In the rebuttal to "We are on the side of parents everywhere working hard to raise their kids” they cherry pick a quote talking about the audience problem: having a social graph full of both peers and family on the same site means that live streaming things for friends will obviously ruin the experience, so figuring out a way around that would indeed be a critical requirement for a live streaming feature. Giving teens a way to interact with friends outside of parental supervision is not inconsistent with wanting to help parents. I don't like Facebook. Heck, I left a job there partially because I disagreed with the product decisions and evolution. But I trust this article way less than I trust Mark Zuckerberg.
flipgimble 9mo ago
'Another internal email reads: “One of the things we need to optimize for is sneaking a look at your phone under your desk in the middle of Chemistry :)”' As a parent this makes my blood boil. This is how a drug dealer talks. Fuck Meta for optimizing their own profit with their massively automated attack against human psychology and attention.
Aurornis 9mo ago
I think a lot of HNers are letting their guard down for sensationalized news stories like this one because it invokes Mark Zuckerberg in the headline. Scrolling through the claims I thought the "79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms" claim sounded odd, given what I know from a friend who worked in prosecution of sex trafficking crimes. So I clicked the link to their source, which says this: > 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. In 2019, the National Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that Instagram was the leading platform for child grooming in the U.K. The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram The study they're quoting isn't about all sex trafficking, it's specifically about sex trafficking victims who were recruited on social media. The statistics are basically a breakdown of the popularity of social media platforms in the UK at the time the study was done. In other words, they're lying. They're hoping you don't look at the claims too closely. It's really sad to see so many HN comments from people calling for regulation and taking this all at face value, when just last week everyone was upset that Discord might require some accounts to present ID to remove content filters. Sensationalized reports like this are how we end up with those requirements.
lacoolj 9mo ago
The links to the full testimony from expert witness (https://techoversight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Exhibit-15-2198.pdf https://techoversight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Exhibit...) is certainly worth a good skim-through (and if you have the time, full read). Very insightful and eye-opening data and quotes from staff at Meta.
hoppp 9mo ago
The what he said column looks bad on mobile for me. Just a long column of single characters.
austindurant11 9mo ago
Why is that I didn't give away their money . What I see was a study for understanding if that wasn't a genetic practice for the brain or if there's a robot showed compassion after a while didn't you see what I was doing or not

545 points by speckx 9mo ago

Related? "Jury told that Meta, Google 'engineered addiction' at landmark US trial" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46959832 10-feb-2026 385 comments

bilekas 9mo ago
One is congress the other is a civil case brought against FB IIRC.
SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
Definitely related. They mention in the article that they're trying to get ahead of his testimony today in this trial, and want people to keep in mind when they read about it in the news that they don't think he can be trusted.

pimlottc 9mo ago

NB use reader mode on mobile Safari, otherwise the tables are illegible

xiphias2 9mo ago
Desktop site on Chrome mobile

NickC25 9mo ago

Can't hold him accountable. He's too wealthy and owns too many congressmen/women.

koakuma-chan 9mo ago
congresspersons
- Fulgidus 9mo ago
  congresspigs
  - delichon 9mo ago
    Your slur on pigs is unkind. What have they done to you? I knew a pig and she never lied to me or passed legislation. She did accept a contribution from a lobbyist though.

bilekas 9mo ago

> The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act, which will hold their feet to the fire and force them to protect children and teens. This is no surprise he lied, that's just what businesses do, their bottom line for the shareholders is all that matters. But the answer is NOT the "Kids Online Safety Act" Legislation will definitely help things, regulations more so, but that safety act is not the answer ie Age Verification. So rewrite it, do your job, use the researchers and experts available to you to bring a bill proposal that doesn't have special interest groups or lobbyists behind it and then we can see some improvement.

brightball 9mo ago
After 25 years heavily paying attention to political news, the "bad thing happened" followed by "we have to pass this bill that won't fix it but I want to capitalize on the news cycle to gain support anyway" cycle should just be assumed now.

cies 9mo ago

[flagged]

llm_nerd 9mo ago
No, he did not, and you're repeating some misinformation bit of nonsense that you find in anti-vax ignorance echo chambers. When he first learned about mRNA vaccines he misunderstood them and was concerned about vaccines "basically modifying people's DNA and RNA to directly encode in a person's DNA and RNA basically the ability to produce those antibodies". This is technically ignorant to the point of being nonsensical, but to be fair he was a layman speculating based upon very limited knowledge about something he just learned about, and it was a casual discussion during the very early days. And let's be fully clear for the antivaxxers among us: Every single plutocrat that pulls the levers that get you riled on your march to becoming Soylent Green got the vaccines. Every single power broker got the vaccines. The antivax nonsense is specifically the realm of the bottom-feeder easily conned contingent, manipulated into some bit of nonsense or other .
- ifyoubuildit 9mo ago
  > Every single plutocrat that pulls the levers that get you riled on your march to becoming Soylent Green got the vaccines. Every single power broker got the vaccines I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am curious how you came to know this so confidently.
  - Covzire 9mo ago
    The amount of regret that exists doesn't fit either, don't forget Biden's warning that those who don't take it will die, the exact opposite of all the fear mongering happened and it's despicable people keep telling all the same lies.
    - llm_nerd 9mo ago
      "Regret"? You mean the grifters conning the waves and waves of incredibly stupid Americans? Do you think the million or so people who died of COVID also might have some regrets? Biden didn't warn that "those who don't take it will die" -- again, why do you people lie constantly about everything? -- he warned that it would be a winter of severe illness and death, which is absolutely, unequivocally, empirically true! In those early days hospitals were legitimately overcrowded with severe cases. Are we pretending that didn't happen now? I mean, you guys really are. It's incredible. I get that America is doing a speed-run to being the dumbest idiocracy on the planet, so you guys have this momentary period where you think you "won". Just be aware that to the entire rest of the planet you are a worldwide farce. A "how not to", and it's incredible how much the super rich conned the masses of the stupid to continually act against their own best interests.

mystraline 9mo ago

And we *know* why, because of billionaire. But lying in Congress IS perjury. He should be in jail for contempt, and then then personally tried for perjury. Its a felony with punishment up to 5 years.

1over137 9mo ago
But we're talking about the USA here. Was such a thing ever done to someone of analogous stature in history?
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- js8 9mo ago
  I recently watched Animagraffs' videos on Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam. It's interesting that no one has asked, "was anything analogous to that ever done before"? Remember, we're talking about USA here.
- mystraline 9mo ago
  Absolutely, yes. When China's civil war with Chaing Kai-Shek happened, the communists won. After that, landlords, business owners, and industrial owners were presented with an ultimaturm, of which many took. And that was to return to being a worker, or be jailed. Given how capitalists amass wealth and options to evade all governments, this does seem like a valid solution. A modern viewing is after Jack Ma (CEO of Alibaba) publicly criticized the monetary policy of China. He lost most of his standing, and the attempt of an IPO for his payments company. Note that he lives and is still CEO, just not as a Influential power in China.
  - khalic 9mo ago
    lol are you seriously trying to frame the Chinese cultural revolution as something good? It was an anti-science, barbaric and corrupt movement
    - 9mo ago

buellerbueller 9mo ago

Elect representatives, regardless of party, who will hold to account those who harm us for profit. I do not agree with Thomas Massie on a lot of things philosophically, but I respect him for pushing for the release of The Epstein Files.

wongarsu 9mo ago

Reading through the list, I really wouldn't call most of them lies. There are some lies, but it's mostly 'very precisely worded statements' and statements that were arguably made in bad faith, but are not technically false. With some of them I am not even sure how their 'evidence' column is supposed to refute the quoted statement. In my opinion being this broad is really hurting the message. They should concentrate on the actual lies, not dilute the list with "In 2024 Zuckerberg told congress that accounts of under-sixteens are private by default, but they only rolled that feature out in 2024, seven years after learning of the harms of not doing that. He lied!"

lelandfe 9mo ago
This broad…side, perhaps?
InitialLastName 9mo ago
It's worth noting that their argument isn't "Mark Zuckerberg perjured himself and needs to be jailed for it" because he said something strictly and knowingly false. It's "we shouldn't trust Mark Zuckerberg's testimony because he (and Meta more widely) have a long (long, long) history of being knowingly deceptive about the harms of their product".
- delichon 9mo ago
  If they had said that instead of "lied to congress" they would have lost less credibility with this reader. But then they wouldn't have gotten the click.
  - InitialLastName 9mo ago
    The word "lied" has a lot of layers[0] other than "knowingly said an outright falsehood". He may not have told an outright, provable falsehood (although some of these examples are close). He certainly has a long history of statements to Congress that are baldly misleading or belied by Meta's own internal records. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Types_and_associated_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Types_and_associated_terms

FrustratedMonky 9mo ago

Remember when lying could get you in trouble? Lying has become normalized to such an extent that reality is unknowable. Just listen to any regime press conference on any day. Just pick any random day and listen. The hyperreal is here.

salemh 9mo ago
[dead]
khalic 9mo ago
Oh don’t forget that calling someone a lier is consider off limits too!
CrzyLngPwd 9mo ago
It's always been this way, though. From tall tales of hunting or combat, the town crier spread propaganda from the lords to the public.
- FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
  Just like apples/fruit from medieval times were tart and sour and full of seeds, and through generations of selective breeding are now super sweet and not necessarily still good for you. The old town crier is very removed from todays social media. Yes, a newspaper from 1800's was pretty biased. But does that justify todays hyper targeted algorithms as a-ok? That something happened in the past is not a good argument that it is a-ok today.
  - hrimfaxi 9mo ago
    The argument wasn't "this is okay", the argument was "your past where the liars were punished never was". > Remember when lying could get you in trouble? > It's always been this way, though.
    - FrustratedMonky 9mo ago

Aurornis 9mo ago

> The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act Just last week there was uproar because Discord was going to require age verification to join adult themed servers and bypass content filters. This is how people are getting baited into inviting these restrictions and regulations into their services: By believing it’s necessary to hurt their enemies like Mark Zuckerberg combined with “think of the children”. It’s still sad to these calls for extensive regulation and oversight getting upvoted so much on Hacker News. Every time you see someone calling for regulation for kids online, remember that the only way to tell kids and adults apart is to force everyone to go through age verification. Before you start thinking that you don’t care because you don’t use social media, remember that you are reading this on a social media site. The laws aren’t going to care about whether or not you think Hacker News qualifies as social media.

mrsssnake 9mo ago
The only way to get rid of domestic abusers in your neighbor is to detonate an atomic bomb at the town center.
raincole 9mo ago
I wonder if one day when people hear "censored internet" the first country that comes to mind will be a western one (probably the UK, but the US is not off the table either) instead of China.
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  It already does for me because I live here. Keir Starmer is desperately unpopular and yet he wants to suppress why people do hate him. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/27/starmer-least-popular-uk-prime-minister-poll/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/27/starmer-leas...
  - u02sgb 9mo ago
    The existence of that article surely suggests there is no censorship of the information about his unpopularity?

raincole 9mo ago

> > The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act Really? Even if we ignore all the implication of censorship and surveillance state, lying to the congress is already a crime. It's already regulated. If he can get away with it why another act would be different?

blacklion 9mo ago
Yes, it is what always puzzles me: we have regulations, they don't work because everybody can find loopholes in them, or enforcement is not strict, but lets add more regulations instead of really implementing previous ones. It is everywhere. More and more layers of regulations which don't work, not enforceable or nobody care to enforce them, but lets add more in same vein.
- mystraline 9mo ago
  It shouldn't surprise you. Once a company starts bribing politicians with campaign funds, they have a foot in the door. Once they have the paid lobbyists, then they present company-written policy documents and laws that just need a sponsor. Those laws are crafted explicitly for specific holes only the company can effectively navigate. But on its face, looks completely fair. Law gets passed, and the law is really a moat 'pulling up the ladder' for any other company trying to encroach on their space. Naturally, its written such a way that will pass basic scrutiny.
  - blacklion 9mo ago
    It is not only about regulating huge businesses. For example, EU has effective definition of electric bicycle, electric moped and electric motorcycle. It is three different classes of vehicles, with strict technical thresholds for properties. You always can say what you see. These three classes of vehicles require different licenses (no license for bicycle, AM or B for moped and A1/A2/A for motorcycle), different insurance, different equipment (helmet). They can be ridden on different roads (and bicycle roads), etc. Here, in the Netherlands teenagers (their parents) buy "Fat bikes". Thy are effectively electric mopeds (1000W+ of power, mode when you don't need to pedal, etc), but of course it is hidden mode, and "by default" they are limited as electric bicycles. Only saddle is not adjustable, they weight 20+ kg and it is impossible to ride them as bicycles, you will damage your knees very quickly. So, all teenager ride them as if they be bicycles (no helmets, no license plates, no insurance, no nothing, on the bicycle paths), in moped mode: very fast (faster than 30km/h), powerful, etc. Everybody sane hate them. Every city discuss how to ban them completely. Every magistrate want new regulations. But each new definition of "fat bike" is leaky! There is NO any bribing or "sponsors". But everybody wants some new regulations when there are perfectly clear regulations. Problem is, you need to do checks of these bikes. You need confiscate vehicles which violate rules, you need raids. Police don't want to do this. Ok, some Magistrate will come up with definition of "Fat bike" to ban them. What will change? Nothing. Now police has all legislations to regulate this madness. But it don't want to spend resources for this. What new definition of "fat bike" will change? Nothing.

blululu 9mo ago

The css on iOS safari is totally busted. The first column is fixed and tiny so it makes the row really tall.

luxuryballs 9mo ago
yeah my experience on iOS was harmed by this website, Congress must take action!
probably_wrong 9mo ago
Firefox on Android too. Reader mode helps a lot, but still.

lm28469 9mo ago

[flagged]

giancarlostoro 9mo ago

Remember when he bought IG and one of the conditions was that he not merge IG / FB but its definitely merged behind the scenes. IG somehow knows your FB and vice versa. Also, when one goes offline, both go offline.

dudefeliciano 9mo ago
not just behind the scenes with account manager, but instagram content and comments get pushed to facebook as well
eschulz 9mo ago
Well, there is an explanation here - he simply was misleading regarding his intentions.
- eukara 9mo ago
  it's called deception, yeah
kakacik 9mo ago
He is a manipulative POS from the start (remember the 'dumb f_cks' quote? How much more do you need to know about the person which is still the same person we discuss?). High level and high functioning sociopath. So is everybody else up there regardless of the name of the company, only their quality of PR and luck varies. Now are you happy that most of this forum works for similar or worse people, can you internally accept that and come back to work like nothing is happening? Or do you need to invent a bit of alternate reality where its not your/your company case somehow and you are on good moral mission because XYZ? Not that many people can actually properly do this from my experience, most need to somehow feel they are on the good side of history even if they were doing/helping very questionable stuff to be polite. Just one small example - companies living from ads.
dheera 9mo ago
FB knows your eBay, for that matter. When I search for something on eBay I get ads on FB for it. Even if they are not merged, corporations can share your data behind the scenes and you are forced to unilaterally, without negotiation, accept that ToS to use these sites.

chistev 9mo ago

What did he lie about?

smt88 9mo ago
The article answers that question. Do you want commenters to summarize the article for you? It would be easier to just click and read for yourself
Forgeties79 9mo ago
It’s in the first paragraph.

bronco21016 9mo ago

I haven't paid a lot of attention to this issue but after reading some of the statements in the article I can't help but agree with Tech Oversight's conclusions. It's just anecdotal but recently, when mindlessly scrolling reels, (yes, bad enough already) I came across a reel that was unquestionably sexually explicit (in USA, I think policy varies on locale). I reported the account and reel because after clicking on the account there was even more material. This wasn't just a "creator" promoting their adult site with suggestive content. The account had several reels where the preview image was just black but after 2-3 seconds an adult image would appear. Facebook closed my report with "no further action required" saying the content does not violate their policy. I'm sure they have an absolute tsunami of reports to go through and I do not envy the humans tasked with this work. However, it seems pretty clear to me they are not effectively achieving their publicly stated goals of moderating the content on their platform.

Forgeties79 9mo ago
I know exactly what you’re talking about and it has been driving me nuts for years. They constantly go up there and say “it’s cool we totally have these amazing algorithms that solve the problem,” then when they don’t solve the problem they just shrug and go “well we’re just so big you can’t actually expect us to do what we said we would. We’re doing decent enough!” YouTube is another great example of this. Fine, be smaller. If I own 10,000 apartment buildings and one of them collapses killing dozens and injuring more, I don’t just get to shrug and go “sorry folks, it’s not reasonable for you to expect me to follow all the rules on all my properties. I’m too big.”
- tantalor 9mo ago
  Too big to succeed.
- morissette 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - jobs_throwaway 9mo ago

trolleski 9mo ago

Zuck lied? Impossible!

blitzar 9mo ago

Lock him up. Then he can pay the pardon bribe.

ddtaylor 9mo ago
Infinite money glitch life hack. That's why we call it Hacker News!

jaybyrd 9mo ago

i remember when i was a kid i used to think if you broke the law you went to jail. i miss being a kid.....

4ggr0 9mo ago
the financier's island files gave me a huge dose of this. i always got the feeling that laws don't really matter for truly rich people, now i'm convinced. which means that we need different methods than law to handle such people.
- buellerbueller 9mo ago
  We just need to elect a wave of politicians that will hold the wealthy accountable. That's the single issue we should all be voting on at the moment. Once the lawless are brought to heel, and their wealth kicked out of politics forever, then we can actually start solving the other problems that face us.
  - thmsths 9mo ago
    Or maybe stop allowing people to pay for their own legal defense? Public defenders for everyone and then we will indeed all be equals before the law. Billionaires being able to outspend the prosecution by such a wide margin that they can turn the legal battle into a war of attrition that they are likely to win is a complete travesty of justice. But I am not holding my breath on that one, too many people benefiting from the current system.
  - 4ggr0 9mo ago
    i wish that would be the solution. mind you, i am not only talking about the sexual abuse. there's also corruption, tax evasion(excuse me, *optimization of course), closed-door deals, arrangements etc. i unfortunately don't believe we'll ever be able to vote these things away. what do votes do if we have over 3000 billionaires worldwide who treat the world like their playground. add to the 3000 the other thousands of people who "only" have 100M+. good luck finding voters when the people with money can launch huge marketing(aka. propaganda) campaigns and control virtually every social media platform, news site, radio- and tv channel, podcasts and what have you. something i only recently heard about and am thinking a lot about is, 'The purpose of a system is what it does'. JE feels like a symptom, not a disease.

jacobsimon 9mo ago

Not trying to defend Meta at all here, but this report is also lying. For example, it says "79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms." But the source it cites actually says 79% of online social media cases occurred on Facebook and Instagram. So this stat is probably just a reflection of Meta's market share of social media.

blitzar 9mo ago
Meta's market share of child sex trafficking.
- jacobsimon 9mo ago
  I should say market share of social media* updated lol
devsda 9mo ago
> But the source it cites actually says 79% of online social media cases I'm curious about what other conclusion you may have reached when reading "on Meta's platforms". Offline by nature cannot happen on Meta's platforms right and any site that facilitates interaction can be considered social media.
- jacobsimon 9mo ago
  It’s just an incredibly different statement. It’s like saying 79% of Americans voted for Trump vs 79% of registered Republicans voted for Trump, they lead to very different conclusions.
- retsibsi 9mo ago
  > I'm curious about what other conclusion you may have reached when reading "on Meta's platforms". The claim was "79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms", so they probably took it to mean that 79% of all sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta's platforms. I don't mean to be a smartarse (well maybe a little). But why wouldn't they interpret it that way, when that's exactly what it says? "X% of all Y happened on Z" doesn't implicitly mean "X% of online Y happened on Z" just because Z is an online platform.

navigate8310 9mo ago

I think the heart of the issue is mental health not being tangible enough for a common man, not being able to easily see and identify the plethora of spectrum like how a simple cough and cold flu might look and feel like; is what drives these companies to billion dollar valuations. Until the society changes its outlook towards mental wellness, no amount of regulations or Government oversight might solve this and we'll continue to have the next generation of Meta or TikTok ready to kill humanness in humanity further.

gverrilla 9mo ago

Americans are ok with Trump and ICE and gun-nation and schoolshootings and bombing brown-skinned people in far away countries: nothing is going to happen with Zuckerberg.

josefritzishere 9mo ago

Lying to congress is actually crime, even if you are not under oath. I know it doesnt look like it because it's rarely enforced but it's a felony. https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/what-are-the-penalties-for-lying-to-congress/ https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/what-are...

zer00eyz 9mo ago

Letter writing (with faster delivery), Book printing, Radio, Television, Music Distribution (records and tapes) -- This is a list of items that when new, were going to be the downfall of society. Im sure a few of you are old enough to remember the satanic panic of the 80s and the PMRC in the 90's. None of these turned out the way people thought. There is nothing new under the sun, and this response looks very much hyperbolic in the face of manipulated data and "feelings" over "facts". That isn't to say that there aren't things wrong with Facebook, or social media, but this keeps getting attention when it is no where near the top of the list.

LightBug1 9mo ago

"We're the billonaire CEO's, bitch" *bitch noun 1. - commonly used in reference to the government and the people.

phendrenad2 9mo ago

I learned not to trust uckerbergzay when the ambridgecay alyticaanay scandal broke, and you had to jump through mental gymnastics to find a hypothetical where he wasn't directly involved in the planning of it. I am reminded again every time I post about this and the bots show up to mass downvote my comment because it says "ambridgecay alyticaancay" (without the Pig Latin).

jazz9k 9mo ago

[flagged]

butterbomb 9mo ago
[flagged]

charles_f 9mo ago

One thing that I would recommend is to avoid weaving the actual lies with statements that are subject to judgement. For example, the first two rows are about the level of investment in protection tools, and are claimed as lies because of the ineffectiveness of these tools. Both sides can be true simultaneously. You can invest a lot and produce no results. When I read that, I thought they were grasping at straws. Then carried on reading and found real, unchallengeable lies, nevertheless had a little alarm in my head that these might be interpretations more than facts. It would probably be good to either remove those borderline "understatements" or "distortion of the truth" ; or present them as things we can't trust given all the other lies.

close04 9mo ago
> Both sides can be true simultaneously. You can invest a lot and produce no results. Evidence show that Meta can be very effective at achieving the results that drive profits. It's already suspicious when they fail exactly at the ones that would lower profits. Even more when you consider the rest of the evidence which shows intention to hide the "failure". That breaks trust and you're just choosing to believe that the lie that they got caught with must have been the only one. Short of universal laws almost anything can go both ways. But when one is overwhelmingly more likely you can make a concession and agree Zuck was lying a lot in there. You're bending over backwards to muddy the waters with vague "it could go both ways" statements.
- charles_f 9mo ago
  Likely a lie but also they do have tools, they're just inefficient. When you have 10 other examples that are undeniable, might as well remove the ones that can be challenged, let alone open with it, or you open yourself to very standard rebuttal PR strategies that focus on these.
  - gtowey 9mo ago
    > Likely a lie but also they do have tools, they're just inefficient This is the exact problem, they could solve the issue by spending a lot more money. They could hire enough human content reviews to keep up, they could force all content to go through review before it can be posted. But those things break their business model. If you take away their ability to externalize these cost by harming society, it turns out Facebook isn't a viable business. From this perspective, every dollar they make, all those billions that Zuckerberg is "worth" is simply value extraction at our expense. Which is why he will do absolutely everything to protect it. It's so far beyond giving him the benefit of the doubt. To know what he knows and continue to operate Facebook like this is moving into the territory of being pure evil.

shevy-java 9mo ago

I think superrich people who lie to congress (aka the general public), need to go to jail for a mandatory time. Even if it is only for one week.

nickdothutton 9mo ago

>79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. This sounded very high, and I was interested to know how they understood what the total (100%) figure was, given the presumed underground nature of the activity. Clicked on the link for the source. The statement is false. By all means hold these companies to account but sensationalism isn't going to help. Full disclosure: I have never had a Facebook account and couldn't care less whether Meta exists or not.

pbhjpbhj 9mo ago
I don't necessarily doubt it's false, but if you have something of your source material, or your reasoning then it would make it possible to agree.
- rappatic 9mo ago
  That link leads to a PDF which says "The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram." This is a completely different statistic: the percentage of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media vs. the percentage "of all child sex trafficking."
  - y-c-o-m-b 9mo ago
    Perhaps it's an AI written/assisted article because they clearly added the two percentages together to come up with the poorly summarized claim.
Aurornis 9mo ago
I caught the same thing. Clicking on the link gives this text: > 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. In 2019, the National Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that Instagram was the leading platform for child grooming in the U.K. The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram The study was only looking at sex trafficking victims in the UK in 2020 who were recruited on social media platforms. So 100% of the victims in the study were recruited on social media platforms. The breakdown is basically a map of which social media platforms were popular in the UK in 2020. It's a blatant lie to claim that this number represents all sex trafficking victims.

dabedee 9mo ago

I'm usually the first one to bash Facebook and its main liar in chief, but the first couple of paragraphs mix damning evidence with weak stretches (as mentioned by others here). The bad stuff is genuinely bad enough. Meta's own research found Instagram worsened body image for 1 in 3 teen girls [1]. They killed a deactivation study when results looked bad, with one employee comparing it to tobacco companies burying research [2]. They had a 17-strike policy for accounts involved in sexual solicitation [3]. And they ran growth strategies explicitly targeting kids under 13, segmenting youth into "Kid (6-10), Tween (10-13), and Teen 13+" [4]. [1] 2019 Instagram slide presentation, "Teen Mental Health Deep Dive" [2] Meta internal deactivation study (unnamed employee quote from unsealed docs) [3] Testimony of Vaishnavi Jayakumar, former Instagram Head of Safety and Well-being [4] Meta Internal Evidence Exhibit 45

ddtaylor 9mo ago

> The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act The government fails is the problem and the only solution is more government.

hosteur 9mo ago

I cannot read the table on mobile.

slibhb 9mo ago

There is limited evidence for social media being a problem. This whole thing is a garden-variety moral panic. Particularly troubling is the constant vitriol aimed at Mark Zuckerberg. I admire Mark for ignoring the whole thing, being a family man, and continuing to build products. If people want to get up-in-arms about something, it should be online gambling. We've run the experient there. The harms are clear and the world is better when gambling is highly restricted.

tiffanyh 9mo ago

Just something to keep in mind… Testifying before Congress is brutally stressful. Even the most prepared CEOs can freeze up, lose their train of thought, or misspeak under that kind of pressure. And the media often hunts for “gotcha” lines without acknowledging how easy it is to make an unintentional misstatement in that setting. Note: I’m not weighing in on whether Zuckerberg’s statements were accurate ... I’m just pointing out the pressure dynamic that often gets overlooked.

himata4113 9mo ago
[dead]
consp 9mo ago
He also gets the best training money can buy and CEOs make enough to justify them giving a perfect presentation. It's not like you ask some lone employee to do it. The proverbial buck stops somewhere.
- NickC25 9mo ago
  He also gets the softest questions money can buy, because he's bought practically every congressperson.

ddlsmurf 9mo ago

I'm not American legal system expert, but if I'm not mistaken, this isn't just lies and being deceptive, this is called perjury and is a crime no ?

tejohnso 9mo ago
Yeah, but the stock might take a massive hit if this were seriously pursued, and it might even have further consequences in the markets. Let's keep our priorities straight.
- ddlsmurf 9mo ago
  I can only hope you're being sarcastic, because it does seem to hit close to what's actually happening

cindyllm 9mo ago

[dead]

GlibMonkeyDeath 9mo ago

https://senate.ucsf.edu/tobacco-ceo-statement-to-congress https://senate.ucsf.edu/tobacco-ceo-statement-to-congress Tobacco CEO's Statement to Congress 1994 News Clip "Nicotine is not addictive."

fainpul 9mo ago
Richard Nixon: "I'm not a crook." [1] Bill Clinton: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." [2] Donald Trump: let's not even start. I find it weird that institutions still insist the people they question must swear to tell the truth. It obviously doesn't help. Quite the opposite, it makes the liars look stronger (until they're caught). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton%E2%80%93Lewinsky_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton%E2%80%93Lewinsky_scand...
- antonvs 9mo ago
  *liars (The spelling’s not logical, just an historical quirk of English)
  - fainpul 9mo ago
    Thanks

rappatic 9mo ago

Half of these examples aren't even lies. The right column of this table is full of whataboutisms and fabricated statistics. For example, > Zuckerberg: "We don't allow people under the age of 13 on our service. So if we find anyone who's under the age of 13, we remove them from our service." > What the evidence says: Internal document stating the goal for Meta to be the most relevant social products for kids worldwide. To do so, Meta will focus on "each youth life stage, ‘Kid’ (6-10), ‘Tween’ (10-13), and ‘Teen’ 13+." The fact that Meta eventually wants to appeal to kids doesn't mean they currently allow kids on their platform. And here's an example of a fabricated statistic: > 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. (Link) That link leads to a PDF which says "The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram." This is a completely different statistic: the percentage of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media vs. the percentage "of all child sex trafficking" (the vast majority of which does not occur through social media). Doing stuff like this destroys the website's credibility when it comes to the actual lies.

vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago

Does anybody believe congressional hearings are an honest effort at dealing with issues? It’s just show business to satisfy the voters. And the role of the CEO is to take a beating for show while knowing that nothing will happen to them or their business.

alex1138 9mo ago

Mark Zuckerberg also lied to Aaron Greenspan (thinkcomp on here) and the Winklevosses and, oh, users (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719) and the public (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198) multiple times

voxelc4L 9mo ago

Not that congress or the DOJ would do a single thing about this, but here are the well defined consequences for perjury in front of congress... https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/98-807 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/98-807 Section 1001(a) states: "[I.] Except as otherwise provided in this section, [II.] whoever [III.] in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, [IV.] knowingly and willfully— [i] falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; [ii.] makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or [iii.] makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; [V.] shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A [sexual abuse], 109B [sex offender registration], 110 [sexual exploitation], or 117 [transportation for illicit sexual purposes], or section 1591 [sex trafficking], then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years."

yuliyp 9mo ago

Of the ones that I know something about, almost each one is a stretch to call a lie, or just downright misleading. - 'Internal document stating the goal for Meta to be the most relevant social products for kids worldwide. To do so, Meta will focus on “each youth life stage, ‘Kid’ (6-10), ‘Tween’ (10-13), and ‘Teen’ 13+.’"' for instance is talking about a slide deck for Messenger Kids, which was an explicit focus on building something that was COPPA-compliant and independent of the main Facebook/IG/Messenger products. It's not at all inconsistent with the claim of not allowing people under 13 on the main sites. - In the rebuttal to "We are on the side of parents everywhere working hard to raise their kids” they cherry pick a quote talking about the audience problem: having a social graph full of both peers and family on the same site means that live streaming things for friends will obviously ruin the experience, so figuring out a way around that would indeed be a critical requirement for a live streaming feature. Giving teens a way to interact with friends outside of parental supervision is not inconsistent with wanting to help parents. I don't like Facebook. Heck, I left a job there partially because I disagreed with the product decisions and evolution. But I trust this article way less than I trust Mark Zuckerberg.

flipgimble 9mo ago

'Another internal email reads: “One of the things we need to optimize for is sneaking a look at your phone under your desk in the middle of Chemistry :)”' As a parent this makes my blood boil. This is how a drug dealer talks. Fuck Meta for optimizing their own profit with their massively automated attack against human psychology and attention.

Aurornis 9mo ago

I think a lot of HNers are letting their guard down for sensationalized news stories like this one because it invokes Mark Zuckerberg in the headline. Scrolling through the claims I thought the "79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms" claim sounded odd, given what I know from a friend who worked in prosecution of sex trafficking crimes. So I clicked the link to their source, which says this: > 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. In 2019, the National Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that Instagram was the leading platform for child grooming in the U.K. The 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram The study they're quoting isn't about all sex trafficking, it's specifically about sex trafficking victims who were recruited on social media. The statistics are basically a breakdown of the popularity of social media platforms in the UK at the time the study was done. In other words, they're lying. They're hoping you don't look at the claims too closely. It's really sad to see so many HN comments from people calling for regulation and taking this all at face value, when just last week everyone was upset that Discord might require some accounts to present ID to remove content filters. Sensationalized reports like this are how we end up with those requirements.

lacoolj 9mo ago

The links to the full testimony from expert witness (https://techoversight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Exhibit-15-2198.pdf https://techoversight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Exhibit...) is certainly worth a good skim-through (and if you have the time, full read). Very insightful and eye-opening data and quotes from staff at Meta.

hoppp 9mo ago

The what he said column looks bad on mobile for me. Just a long column of single characters.

austindurant11 9mo ago

Why is that I didn't give away their money . What I see was a study for understanding if that wasn't a genetic practice for the brain or if there's a robot showed compassion after a while didn't you see what I was doing or not