Episode 158

Parents across the globe differ in age, culture, faiths, political allegiance, and personal standards, but they would generally agree that we must protect our children from any threat. We are to protect them from dangerous situations and dangerous people (including themselves!) but today, a mutated threat has emerged with breakneck speed and incredible complexity: social media. It is many things at once: useful and useless, helpful and detrimental, empowering and enslaving. Such is the concern about this technology that in late January of 2024, U.S. lawmakers grilled the CEOs of the most popular social media platforms to discover what can be done to protect vulnerable children from its malicious capabilities. On this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we will discuss a portion of this senate judiciary hearing. Does the Bible have anything to say on the subject, or is it too old and unrelatable? How can we protect ourselves and our children from the often corrosive effects of social media? We had a few ideas in the podcast, but we invite you to interact in the comments section or by reaching out to us directly: how do you think we can protect our kids from social media?

[MCG]

Yeah, but again, it goes back to this. They’re feeding the flesh and it’s not going to be something that the government can solve. So, I agree with you that the government probably should stay out of this. The government probably should not be getting themselves involved, but they’re not going to do that. But the problem is we are trying to solve a spiritual problem with a political solution.

[Jay]

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG. And we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

This is episode 158 of the removing Barrett’s podcast, and in this episode. We will be responding to a recent Senate hearing with a co-founder and CEO of Meta. Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp and among other products and services. They’re going to review specifically Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, interview of Mark Zuckerberg, and discuss teens, devices, and social media.

[Jay]

Hi, this is Jay. MCG and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to removingbarriers.net and subscribing to receive all things, removing barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating at removingbarriers.net/donate, removing barriers, a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

All right, Jay, let’s jump into a little bit of the background, then we’ll jump right into the first clip we have of Ted Cruz.

[Jay]

In late January of 2024, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a televised hearing called Protecting Children Online, in which the CEO’s from discord Meta Snap, TikTok, and EX, formerly Twitter, were questioned about their efforts, or lack thereof, to implement sufficient safeguards and protections for. Minor users on their platform, minor being children. Identified as 18 or younger and this is from their website. The bottom line is that social media companies have failed to police themselves at our kids expense, and now Congress must act. And so the entire hearing was nearly four hours long televised. Many people were in attendance. And emotions were running high. During the hearing and that’s what we’re here to discuss today, whether or not the CEO’s should or have implemented enough protections for children using their platforms.

[MCG]

Alright, here’s the first clip from Ted Cruz.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Social media is a very powerful tool. But we’re here because every parent I know, and I think every parent in America is terrified. About the garbage that is directed at our kids. I have two teenagers at home. And the phones they have are portals. To predators, to viciousness, to bullying, to self harm. And each of your companies could do a lot more to prevent it.

[MCG]

All right, so. I think I might be missing something here.

[Jay]

What?

[MCG]

Why is it that Mark Zuckerberg and other CEOs are responsible for what Ted Cruz teenage children do on the devices or on social media? So guess, in short, is this problem as Zuckerberg, Facebook problem or parenting problem?

[Jay]

That was the first thought I said. If you listen to what he that’s the first thought I was thinking I should say. If you listen to what he said he said, quote, I have two teenagers at home. Their phones are portals too, and he listed all of the terrible things like bullying and sexually explicit material, etcetera. And the first thing that came to my. Mind. Was. So you handed your child a portal to bullying, sexually explicit material violence. Etcetera. Where does the blame lie there? And that seemed to frame and characterize the entire hearing. I might sound harsh, but in my opinion, the. Entire hearing seemed to pin blame on the CEO’s of these social media companies for the children being exposed to those things.

[MCG]

No, I was agreed. You this appears to be a parent. Problem I will be hesitant to say it’s not a social media problem, but because I believe social media might play a role in the problem. But a bigger problem here is lack of parenting. As you said, Ted Cruz, you are the one who are giving your kids the devices. You’re the one who are paying for the Wi-Fi and for the service for these devices. Why is it this Mark’s problem that your kids have access to certain? Things. Files I know when I did a little. Bit. Of research, dumb phones are still available.

[Jay]

And by dumb phones, you mean flip phones. All they can do.

[MCG]

Phones, cell phones that you can use to make a phone call and send a text message. They can’t install any app. You can’t go on the Internet with them per say. It’s just the phone as a phone was intended to do so you don’t need to give them a smart device that crews you don’t need to pay for the Wi-Fi. You don’t need to pay for the service and. Even if you do manage it and we’ll get through that a little bit later, but I will agree with Ted Cruz on this. As I said, it is terrifying to know that children are exposed to certain things on the Internet and social media. Be one of them. And of course, we know children because of their lack of maturity or not they haven’t grown up enough yet, and it’s a maturity because even some adults are hooked and are addicted to the sex pool that’s on the Internet. As to social media. But it’s us as parents still, Cruz, who should be instilling that discipline. It’s us as parents who should be managing their. Devices. And the portals that our kids have access to, we are the parents. So if we know it’s bad, why are we giving them these devices? I can’t think of anything else that we know is bad for our children, and we still only. Well, you know, I need to get it. Each of them, when they at school, a dumb phone can do the same thing. Ohh well they need to be able to do their homework. They can do their homework on their desktop in the middle of their living room.

[Jay]

Where you can see what they’re up to.

[MCG]

Exactly so and. Only thing is. I remember time ago, you know, in churches, at least when I was growing up there, preachers used to preach against parents, putting a television in your teenage room. I can tell the last time I heard a message on that. But no, it’s not even the television where the child would have access to certain channels in their room. And to what certain things in room. No. We give them personal devices that they can be under their sheets. And watching them. But yet it is the CEO of the social media that’s the problem. I don’t know. You remember the ending speech of the movie courageous.

[Jay]

MHM.

[MCG]

Well, yeah, I can modify it and put it this way, it will help my kids manage effectively. Smart devices and computers. I will, who will set boundaries and ensure they are not addicted to smart devices. I will who will do his best to protect them from the cesspool of the Internet? I am their father and by God’s Grace, I will.

[Courageous Movie Clip]

In my home, the decision has already been made. You don’t have to ask who will guide my family. Because by God’s Grace, I will. You don’t have to ask who will teach my son to follow Christ. Because I will. Who will accept the responsibility of providing and protecting my family? I will. Who will ask God to break the chain of destructive patterns in my family’s history? I would. Who will pray for and bless my children to boldly pursue whatever God calls? Them to do. I am their father. I will.

[MCG]

You know I’m not perfect. And if you don’t believe me, just ask my wife. But my prayer for my boys is by his grace that they will serve the Lord, and if a smart device. Is hindering that. They’re not going to have a smart device. I don’t get why Ted Cruz is say ohh well my kids. No, Ted Cruz, I think he’s. Thank you.

[Jay]

I agree with you and before I share what I personally think about what he said, let me play a little bit of devil’s advocate here. These companies are not merely providing a service that enables people to connect and communicate. They are actively. Seeking to influence children or let me. Just say users. By means of their algorithms, what they push for people to see what’s being promoted, what’s being suppressed, can the argument be made that these CEO’s, because of the immense power they have because of the nature of their technology and because of the power that technology wields? Do these CEO’s not have even a sliver of responsibility? In terms of how their product affects the people, that’s one question that I would ask and my initial answer and I’m curious to hear what you say. My initial answer just off the top of my head would be. Yes, only because they have a deeper understanding of their technology than we do. At the very least they should be required not to lie to us about it. And perhaps what they were trying to address in this hearing. But they were unsuccessful in doing it because it turned out to be an emotional shouting match. What they were trying to do. Was addressed the dishonesty that these CEO’s and their other executives within the company are exhibiting when they push a product on to people in this case, particularly children, when they know it has detrimental effects, they care not. They’re simply pushing for the profit. Can that argument be made on the other side?

[MCG]

I think that argument can be made to some degree, but I don’t think it changed the fact that ultimately. Parents are responsible if you want to give a. Percentage. Parents are 90% responsible. Again, we live in a capitalistic society. They can create these social media and do all these things. If no one consume. It. They’re out of business because their product is actually advertisement.

[Jay]

Well, now that I’ve made the devil’s advocate argument, I would agree with you, MCG, that it’s ultimately parents response. Ability for what their kids consume for the technology that their kids have and the apps that these kids have access to, our kids have been targeted with garbage for a very long time. Cell phones and all of the subsequent technologies with that are simply amplifying everything that these kids have been exposed to for quite some time. You and I have recently. Gone back and watched some of the cartoons that we grew up with and both of us were appalled at some of the subliminal messaging in those cartoons that we didn’t even realize until we entered into adulthood. So our kids have been facing that barrage for quite some time now that it’s been. Faced. We’re freaking out because we realize that this has been decades in the making. We are afraid because we realize that we’re somewhat behind the power curve. We don’t understand what’s happening. The technology is developing so quickly and parents simply feel afraid they’re lashing out. They’re looking for someone to blame. That seems to be what was happening in the hearing. But I agree with you, MCG. 90 I would even say 95% of the blame rests at the feet of the parents. Like you said. How do they get those phones? How do they get those apps? How do they get those social media profiles? They would not have been able to get. Them apart from the parents giving it to them. Granted, there are some instances where perhaps children might be not forthcoming with their parents and might do things behind their backs. But by and large, if the kid has a cell phone, their parents provided it for them. So we are responsible for that and not the social media companies, as the hearing would have us to believe.

[MCG]

Yeah. And we’re talking about unfettered access to because you know.

[Jay]

Yes, that’s a good point.

[MCG]

Inspect what you expect. So anyways, here’s.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Mr. Zuckerberg. In June of 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that Instagrams recommendation systems were actively connecting pedophiles to accounts that were advertising the sale of child sexual abuse material. In many cases, those accounts appear to be run by underage children themselves, often using code words and emojis to advertise illicit material. In other cases. The accounts included in Disha that the victim was being sex trafficked. I know that Instagram has a team. That works to prevent the abuse and exploitation of children online. But what was particularly concerning about the Wall Street Journal expose was the degree to which Instagram’s own algorithm. Was promoting the discoverability of victims for pedophiles seeking child abuse material. In other words, this material wasn’t just living on the dark corners of Instagram. Instagram was helping pedophiles find it. By promoting graphic hashtags. Including hashtag PED, ***** and #preteen sex. To potential buyers. Instagram also displayed the following warning screen. To individuals who were searching for child abuse material. These results may contain images of child sexual abuse, and then you gave users two choices. Get resources. Or see results anyway. Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you think?

[MCG]

Ted Cruz is fired up there, but I don’t want to seem like I’m defending Mark Zuckerberg because I do not think he needs the likes of me to defend him. However, as a software engineer, I can understand why the prompt is worded the way it is. Especially when it comes to these kind of software, where legalese are very, very important like in my current position. I can just put anything on the prompt. It literally has to go all the way through to a lawyer. To approve of the verbiage that is presented to the customer so I can understand why it is worded this way. Not trying to defend Mark Zuckerberg here. But again, the question goes back to what we just. Discussed. Why is it that you, Ted Cruz? Why is it that you’re trying to pin the felt of social media on the CEO’s? We already said? Who is to be blamed? The hearing seeks to blame the CEO. Where does the blame truly lie?

[Jay]

Yep, as I’ve mentioned before, it it lies at the feet of parents. Phones are not just portals to predators, bullying and self harm like Ted Cruz said. They’re also the interface. They’re the middle man, they’re the enabler, they’re the hype man. They’re like the drug dealer. Whatever you need, whatever you want, they can get it for you. It’s just a swipe away. I I was going to say a click away, but now that’ll date me. Right, because. Everything is swiping now and so if that device is so dangerous.

[MCG]

Yes.

[Jay]

Children should not have unfettered access to it or on it. He talks about each of the companies being able to do more. Well, sure. But then are we considering what that actually means? The trade off to that is giving the companies quite a bit of power and leeway to execute that. Commend’s encryption might go away. Things that we actually would want might be an unintentional consequence to the. Execution of these bills that they’re offering in terms of a solution to protect kids. The whole idea of quote see results. Anyway. It’s interesting that you pointed out why the prompt is written like that. If you were warned and you go to see the material anyway, then that puts a liability on you, the user. I don’t know if there’s even more to that in terms of legalese and all of that sort of thing, but to me that seems like it’s a double edged sword. Because if you recall, there were many instances on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etcetera, Twitter, even before it was ex, where there were anti abortion posts that were made and they were censored and you had the option. To quote. See it anyway. So we certainly don’t want to make any sweeping changes that would also affect good things. And so that’s something that perhaps the CEO’s are pushing back against. These senators are pushing for legislation that might be too invasive. Too heavy-handed in terms of trying to address a legitimate problem. There’s no defense that could be made for the creation provisions, surge or consumption of csam. Please don’t get me wrong, but at the same time. We have to realize that it’s a double edged sword and I think in some ways I could be wrong about this, but in some ways, perhaps these senators are capitalizing on a very emotional and very personal thing. That is the protection of our children and they also had the parents of children who were devastatingly affected by the lack of protection. Well, they’re capitalizing on that. In order to push. Some legislation and results through or they’re trying to push solutions through that will have unintended consequences. It’s similar to after 911, we were attacked on our own soil. That hadn’t happened since Pearl Harbor, and so people were freaking out and the government took the opportunity to pass the Patriot Act. That had a lot of negative consequences that we’re still feeling today. Unintended, you know, now that we know what Congress is perhaps intended altogether, who knows, but. There were consequences that we didn’t foresee that are affecting us today, and so perhaps it’s the same thing with these senators. What they’re trying to pass and perhaps that’s what the CEO. Are fighting against and I hate to be in a position to try and defend CEO’s because I don’t. I certainly don’t think that they deserve it or anything along those lines, but that is a very important thing for us to consider before we go passing laws just because we feel some kind of way.

[MCG]

Yeah, I do agree with you. The CEO does bear some of the blame. As we said previously, they provide a platform that pulls the felt. But when was the last time you heard that Verizon was blamed because someone uses services? To access vote or even to post felt when was the last time electric? The knee is calling to bear because someone used relationships to the power their computer to do something etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It’s a slippery slope. I remember I was working at an IT provider company, one of my first jobs out of college and one day we were just working as normal. And then all of a sudden, all of the entrances were blocked by FBI agents.

[Jay]

You mean like entrances to the?

[MCG]

Building entrance to the building entrance to the. Later, they were standing in the hallway, just rallying everybody and put all of us into a conference room. At that time, the company was working and had occupied 2 floors of a building. The 3rd and 4th floor, so everyone on the third floor where I was we all were put into one conference room and everyone on the 4th floor was put in one conference room. Then they grabbed the CIO. The Chief Information officer took him to his office and he was in there trying to find documents for them. What was going on? Well, there was this particular company. I’m going to leave the company. On name, but they were doing stuff on the Internet that was illegal and the company I was working at was providing IP services to that company and they came and they wanted to see their bills and all the stuff. But at the end of the day, the company just needed to provide the FBI with some legal documents or whatever the case may be to. So yes, we provide them this service. They weren’t liable for what the company was doing because the only thing they were doing was providing Internet service an IP service to the. But. Company. It has been a long standing rule and there’s a we’re going to talk about the law later down, but a long standing rule that these companies that are not held liable for illegal activities down to their service, even call someone on my cell phone to set up some kind of legal activity. Then I’m going to go to my phone provider and say, well, you provide the services for them to be able to do this so. The law by nature has already protected electric companies, Internet companies and they of extend this to social media companies and stuff like that, so. Yeah, the law is technically on Facebook and the other social media sites. So I do believe that morally they do hold some blame legally, no. But besides that, it’s not just the felt, you know, I think the most dangerous thing about social media, which again. Goes back to the parent is this? Is the comparison that it calls Instagram, in particular, where young ladies will look at pictures on Instagram and like compare themself or I’m not that skinny or I’m not that whatever the envy it provides, the discontentment, the COVID sciousness. These are the real issues of social media, the mental anguish. That they go through and then we apparent to hand them the devices, you know, a time ago they loser say comparing yourself to the. This, but the Joneses no longer live next door. The Joneses live all around the world. That’s the problem, you know. And of course, I think about second Corinthians 10 and verse 12. But we did not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they measure themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise. Why we make it clear here, when we start comparing ourselves among ourselves, we are not wise. And I think that’s one of the root dangers of social media. We can talk about the fruit, the mental anguish and all that stuff. But the root danger is the comparison, the envy, the sin that it really generates in the teenager’s life.

[Jay]

Let me push back on that just a little bit. Again. We’re going back to that devil’s advocate that I mentioned before. The social media companies are not just providing a platform where everyone can put their best foot forward and they could minimize all of their failures and they can always present themselves to be perfect or life is great or I’m always so beautiful. I woke up like this type of stuff and gender, covetousness and a lack of contentment and all of that. But that’s not all. The social media companies are doing. I think the problem are the algorithms and the very aggressive, very deliberate. I don’t know if they’re called apps or programs or strings of code that these companies use in order to provide a more addicting and a more gripping. Experience on their app to get people to use their app for longer. In terms of time in the day and in terms of years and to use their app even more if they’re so aggressively seeking that kind of engagement, I think at that point the question isn’t whether they hold responsibility. The question is how much? It wouldn’t be any different from someone, say for example, selling cigar. That’s well, that’s actually a very good example. Initially, no one understood how detrimental cigarettes were to health, and they were aggressively advertised as cool, as wonderful, as healthy in some cases, actually, even though they were comparing smoking cigarettes to the type of smoking that indigenous peoples were engaging in. That’s a whole nother story, and so is a company liable in any way shape or form for that kind of deception. Of and deliberate advertising or whatever app or whatever mechanism they use to get people to use their app.

[MCG]

Yeah, as I said, morally, yes, there’s some blame to be placed at their fate. They provide the service. You can’t provide the service and not be at least morally to some degree liable for the service you provide. But at the end of the day. A. As we said earlier, we live in a capitalistic society. They are providing the service and again one thing that we always say, if the service is free.

[Jay]

You’re the products.

[MCG]

You’re the product and the algorithm is set in such a way that you are the product and then while I don’t know exactly how these algorithms work because I’ve never seen the code, I don’t know the logic behind of it. We all know some of the logic and some of the things that triggered these algorithms come in. Eyeballs. So if there’s no comments that there’s no eyeballs, what’s going to happen to the post? It dies. But The thing is, these posts are feeding the flesh our sinful nature. Because look at it this way, the people that have the most followers on Instagram. A young lady. Please and not just any young ladies, attractive young ladies that are willing to show their body because it feeds the flesh and young men are drawn to with the pose and the social media that usually gets the greatest number of eyeballs. Hence the greatest number of comments and the greatest number of whatever will be. Post that feeds the flag. For most part, like for instance, I don’t have social media accounts, at least personal social media accounts. When we started this podcast, we opened social media accounts for the podcast and they ended name of the podcast. Whenever we quit the podcast, the social media account is going to go away and I won’t have any access to social media because I don’t really care. What you had for breakfast? That’s not me. However, I observe certain things on social media through the podcast handles. Their latest social media handle that we signed up for was by a social media company called Geta and when they were signing up, they asked you to choose your interest and I skipped that section of the sign up that they allow you to skip it. So I didn’t tell them what my interests were. So when I finished signing up and I got my account. And I went to the feed page. What they were showing me was, you know, pictures of cats, picture of nature, of waterfall and all of these things. Mm-hmm. What are they trying to do? They’re trying to gain us. See. Hey, what did this person here interested. Then once I made my first post on getter and then I go to the general feed, what they start showing me all of a sudden is different. They start showing me all the people who are posting Bible verses and spiritual stuff. Why? Because they figure oh this person posts something about the Bible or something. About some socioeconomical stuff. Stuff we discussed on the podcast and they start showing me stuff on that. Why? Because they say ohh they’re learning me so they have some sort of machine learning or whatever that’s saying. OK, these are the interesting. But one thing we also have to keep. Mine, we might think we’re going on social media and we are just casually scrolling every single detail of what you’re doing is being logged and are being used to determine your likes, your dislikes, and your interest, even without clicking on anything, because we tend to think that the only time the computer. Or the companies can track something of what we do is when we click on it by simply putting the mouse over it is an event that they can monitor by simply stop scrolling when you see a video, and by design the video start playing. Without sound, most of them will stop playing without sound, but the video start playing and if you start scrolling and look at it, that’s an interest. There’s something about that video that causing you to stop so they lock that all that activities you may log where you move your mouse. All these things are being locked, so it’s not just. A click or a direct interaction, or even a comment. So again, I’ve never seen the code behind these things that don’t work for social media companies, but I can speculate and. So some of these algorithms may work just like everyone else can. I don’t think it necessarily needs to be a software engineer to be able to do that, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that we’re probably going to be constantly repeating through this episode. Yes, I do believe that the social media companies have some blame, but the greater blame is on the parents, especially when we talking about. Seeing devices on social media, you know, and as I said, I think for that age group, teens is not just a filter. These things is what it creates within the young heart and the young mind that is so destructive, because if they don’t look like the Instagram model, and if they don’t get enough likes on their posts, they all depressed. They’re all whatever. Why is it I’m not like this person and that create envy and discontentment and. The comparison that I spoke about, but anyway, let’s go trip three and then we continue along the same line.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

All right, Senator, the the, the basic science behind that is that when people are searching for something that is problematic. It’s often helpful to rather than just blocking it to help direct them towards something that that could be helpful for getting them to get help, and we also.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

In what I understand, get resources in what sane universe is there a link for see results anyway?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Well, because we might be wrong. We we try to trigger this this warning or we tried to when we think that there’s any chance that the results might be harmed.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

OK, you might be wrong. Let me ask you how many times was this warning screen displayed?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

I don’t know, but the. But the if there’s if there’s.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

You don’t know. Why don’t you know?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

I I don’t know the answer to.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

That I’ll stop my head. But. But you know what, Mr. Zuckerberg? It’s interesting. You say you don’t know it off the top of your head because I asked it in June of 2023 at an oversight oversight letter and your company refused to answer. Will you commit right now to within five days answering this question for this committee?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Will follow up on that.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Is that a? Yes, not a will follow up. I know how lawyers write statements saying we’re not gonna answer. Will you tell us how many times this warning screen was displayed? Yes or no?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I’ll personally look into it.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

I’m not sure if we OK, so you’re refusing to answer that.

[MCG]

Again, Ted Cruz does need to calm down a little bit here. Because I cannot agree with my Zuckerberg. As he said, they could be wrong. We’re talking about a it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do this. They don’t take for you to be a data scientist to know this, that when you analyzing data and all these things to find a pattern you might be wrong. You know, I was on a team of data scientists. I was a self engineer on the team. Well, one of software engineer team with. Data scientists, as they were analyzing certain documents so that the computer can identify that document. They always have a percentage that they will say, OK, we’re going to be right, maybe about 90% of the time and they have a like a ballpark range. They want to always be in and identify the document. But I’ve never heard a data scientist say that yes, we can 100% identify anything because we’re talking about computer. Obviously it might be wrong and that’s exactly what Mark Zuckerberg said. You know, at the end of the do it. I think that if we could get rid of all of it, yes. The point is, he’s right. We’re talking about computer. He might be wrong. It’s not like they have humans sitting there and say ohh, OK, that’s child **** or no, that’s not it. We’re gonna allow this. We’re gonna allow that. It’s some sort of AI or I’m gonna go into and try and analyze these things and say, OK, that might be it. That might not be it. So. See results. Anyway, I remember even recently on Twitter. I went to a post that I saw and then within that post there was something that was censored, and of course they can say view anyway or whatever the verbiage, Twitter use and the entire thread was about modern day dinosaurs or something like that and turned out to be a rhinoceros in. Remote village in India, Africa. I don’t remember exactly where, but when I click on. It. It was just I ran on one of these animals walking through the village and running after people that not moving out of his way. He wasn’t anything graphic. But I assume based upon. Whatever they figure, it would be graphic. I didn’t send the graphic in it. I’m not simply saying yes, they might be wrong. Mark Zuckerberg is not wrong here. Again, it’s up to you, the moral agent, to say, hey, they tell me that this might be wrong. This might be something I don’t want to see. Do I want to click on it when something is censored? I usually don’t click on it. For some whatever reason, click on this one. It turned out to be something that, in my opinion, should be censored. I’m just saying I’m not trying to defend Mark Zuckerberg, but he’s right.

[Jay]

That was one question that I had in that particular clip. Even if he knew the number of times that someone saw that warning and clicked. See anyway, what does that solve? Knowing that number, what does that solve?

[MCG]

Well, I think what Ted Cruz is trying to pin on my Thunderbird is that you know that ex and other people are looking at child **** or child, whatever and. You are feeding it to them and you’re given the ability to see it. I think what Mark is saying is that we don’t know. We are making a estimation and we are given the human the ability to see it. So see anyway.

[Jay]

Right. Questionable material. Explicit material is being shared. And consumed at an astronomical rate every day, how could he possibly expect the CEO’s of these companies to be able to even remotely? Into track or interface with those kind of numbers. We’re talking millions, if not billions of individual instances a day a week over a few days.

[MCG]

Well, let’s hope it’s not that much when it comes to the things that Ted Cruz are. Talking about but.

[Jay]

Or whatever they would deem to be questionable, whether it’s sexually explicit or maybe violence explicit depiction of violence, I don’t think it seems reasonable to expect that these companies will be able to police themselves in that way.

[MCG]

Right.

[Jay]

The. Even if you were to use, AI is developing. From what I understand so quickly that they might lose the ability to manage it for lack of a better word, forgive my inability to use these high technical words. So if we just start from the standpoint that these companies cannot police their own product. And so it’s up to us to protect ourselves and our children from them. It seems that would be the better option than trying to have government regulate them, because I’m not entirely sure government understands the problem either. If we start from that.

[MCG]

Kamala Harris is the AI is all she does.

[Jay]

Ohh yes, with her word salads and all that’s true. But if we start from that particular stance that these companies cannot police themselves, we have to do it ourselves. I think that the market will decide like the behavior patterns of the consumers will solve this problem. I don’t think that government regulation will, because if people feel like, OK, this is a product that I don’t understand, there are more dangers than there are benefits. I’m not going to use that program, let’s say a large percentage of the market reacts that way. That company’s not going to be able to continue.

[MCG]

Yeah, but again, it goes back to this. They’re feeding the flesh. And is not going to be something that the government can solve. So I agree with you that the government probably should stay out of this. The government probably should not be getting themselves involved, but they’re not going to do that. But the problem is we are trying to solve a spiritual problem with a political solution. And that’s is the epitome. Of the US today, we constantly in the US and Christians even Bible believing Christians falls in this dangerous trap as well. They try to solve spiritual issues. With political solutions and that’s the problem. This is a spiritual issue and the issue is that it feeds the flesh again. We live in a capitalistic society. These CEO’s can provide it all they want. If we don’t consume it, they will go out of business, right. And two, these algorithms are 100% sure that any of these images that they’re talking about is. Even what they say it is. So Ted Cruz, hop in on Zuckerberg. It’s not going to. Help the issue.

[Jay]

In some ways, it’s performative.

[MCG]

Oh yeah, that’s exactly what it says.

[Jay]

I think Ted Cruz knows this. You said that perfectly MCG. Psalm 11/3 says if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? And so if the nation itself has turned away from God, turned away from biblical principles. And we are not only desirous of these things, these problematic things, if we’re pursuing them, our foundations are destroyed. What? And we do.

[MCG]

Well, what can we do? As Christians, we can.

[Jay]

Ohh as Christians yes.

[MCG]

Should. We can share the Gospel and win them, and the Bible said that if any man being Christ in a new creature and let the love of Christ constrain them, and they will turn from their wicked ways and turn to him, but at the end of the day that will be the solution. The gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not the political solution.

[Jay]

Yes. That’s the only solution.

[MCG]

Right. But anyway, they continue in clip 4.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Let me ask you this. How many times did an Instagram user who got this warning? That you’re seeing images of child sexual abuse. How many times did that user click on see results? Anyway? I want to see.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I’m not sure if we stored that, but I’ll personally look into this and.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

We’ll follow up after and what follow up did Instagram do when you have? A potential pedophile clicking on. I’d like to see child ****. What did you do next when that happened?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I think that an important piece of context here is that any context that we think is child sexual abusive.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Mr. Zuckerberg, that’s called a question. What did you do next when someone click? You may be getting. Child sexual abuse images and they click see results. Anyway, what was your next step? You said you might be wrong. Did anyone examine? Was it in fact child sexual abuse material? Did anyone report that user? Did anyone go and try to protect that child? What did you do next?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, we take down anything that we think is sexual abuse material on the service and we do report that.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Did did anyone verify whether it was in fact child sex abuse material?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I don’t know if if every single search result we’re following up on.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

But if you report the people who?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Cross the board. Wanted it, Senator, do you want me to?

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Answer your question, I want you to answer the question I’m asking. Did you report that people who click see results anyway?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Give you some time to speak then. That’s probably one of the factors that we use in reporting and in general and we’ve reported more people and done more reports like this to Nick, Mick, the National Center of Missing exploded children than any other company in the industry. We proactively go out of our way across our services to do this. And have made. I think it’s more than 26,000,000 reports, which is more than the whole rest of the industry combined. So I think that the the investigation that, that we that we.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Zuckerberg, your company and every social media company needs to do much more to protect children. All right, Mr. Chu. In the next couple of minutes.

[MCG]

Objection, your honor. Badgering the witness. This I dislike it when politicians do not allow the witness. To answer you just give him a tongue lashing. What did he accomplish? Nothing. And annoying thing about it is that both sides of the Aldo, it’s not that you can point to and say Democrats do it and the Republicans don’t do it. Both sides do it their clips online, where Democrats are badgering the witness asking questions but not allowing them to give an answer. And just cutting them off just the same thing that Ted Cruz did here. But the question begs, though, since the vices are so bad, Ted Cruz. Since social media is so bad, what is the appropriate age that children should have these devices? But before I even answer the question, here is Steve Jobs a testimony of Steve Jobs and whether or not he allowed his children to have these devices? Remember, we’re talking about Steve Jobs, the father of the iPhone and the iPad. You can argue the person who kind of.

[Jay]

Single handedly yes.

[MCG]

Launch us into the world that we’re in right now. Here’s what he did with.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

These children.

[Steve Jobs Clip]

Steve Jobs in 2010 was on the stage at the Apple event releasing the iPad, and he described it as as a wonderful device that brought you educational tools. It allowed you to surf the web. It allowed you to watch videos. It allowed you to interact with other people. And he basically said it’s the best way to do all those things. Two years later, when he was asked, your kids must love the iPad. He said actually, we don’t allow the iPad in the home. We we think it’s too dangerous for them in effect, the reason why he said that was because he recognised just how addictive the iPad was as a vehicle for delivering things to people that once you had the iPad in front of you or when you took it away from the home. With you, you’d always have access to these platforms that were very addictive, that were hard to resist. So where his kids were very well adapted, well adjusted may not have been prime targets for, say, substance abuse. They, like everyone else, are susceptible to the charms of something like an iPad and what it delivers.

[MCG]

The father of the iPhone and the iPad did not allow his children to have these devices because they were too. Dangerous. You know, Doctor Phil in late February 2024 was on the view promoting his latest book. Here’s what Doctor Phil has to say about these things.

[The View Clip]

Doctor Phil, I want to make sure we get to your new book, which is we’ve got issues and a lot. You were referring to in the last segment, how much has changed since you first got started in this? And one of the things is social media. So you say you’re not the only voice in your kids ears. So you have to be the best voice. Explain.

[Dr. Phil]

That well, think about it. Like 08/09 smartphones came on. And and kids started, they stopped living their lives and started watching people live their lives. And so we saw the biggest spike and the highest levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness and suicidality. Since records have ever been kept. And it’s just continued on and on and on.

[The View Clip]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil]

And then COVID meets 10 years later, and the same agencies that knew that are the agencies that shut down the schools for two years. Who does that? Who takes away the support system for these children? Who takes them away and shuts it down? And by the way, when they shut it down, they stopped the mandated reporters from being able to see children that were being abused and sexually molested, and in fact sent them home and abandon them to their abusers with no way to watch and referrals dropped 50 to 60%.

[The View Clip]

But there was also pandemic going on and they were trying to.

[Dr. Phil]

So yeah.

[The View Clip]

They were trying to save kids lives, remember? We know a lot of folks who died during this, so it wasn’t. People weren’t laying around with the bone, but well, you know what? We’re lucky. Maybe we’re lucky they didn’t because we kept them out of the the.

[Dr. Phil]

Children.

[The View Clip]

The places that they could get be sick because no one wants to believe we.

[Jay]

Oh, my word.

[The View Clip]

Had an issue. Are you saying no school children died of COVID?

[Dr. Phil]

I’m saying it was the safest group. They were the less vulnerable group and they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID, and that’s not an opinion. That’s a. Yeah.

[MCG]

All right. So Doctor Phil gave the ladies of the view a good tongue lashing. There, at least put them in their place. When it comes to COVID. But the important thing here is that even about COVID you talk about the effects of social media and smartphones have on children, and it seems to me that the world. Knows something that Christian Perez doesn’t know that these things are dangerous and must be monitored. Giving your kids unfettered access to the Internet, devices and social media is not. Eyes smart devices can be set up in such a way that the child doesn’t have full control of the device, that you can prevent the child from installing apps and know what kind of apps that they install. As a matter of fact, if you give your kid the smartphone, well, I would say don’t even give them a smartphone if they need to have a device, loan it to them, letting them know. This is not yours, this is mine. This is for Mommy. This is daddy’s phone. I’m allowing you to use it. So in other words. You’re going to be looking at their text messages, you’re going to be looking at the Internet site that they’re going to, you’re going to prevent them. From installing apps and having accounts on social media, I think the best approach might be, as Steve Jobs said, just don’t give them the device. But you know, you might think that by taking us back to the dinosaur age. So if you want to give them one at minimum, put some serious parental control on. In terms of control Trader app that they don’t have admin rights on the phone and all these things so they can’t install apps, they can’t do anything on the phone without getting permission from you to do it.

[Jay]

And even then, we have to be vigilant, because even with all of those efforts to intervene, things can happen.

[MCG]

Ohh yeah, but I’m simply saying, you know the question. What age should they be allowed on social media? I’m not even going to give an age. I think every parent should determine that for their children. But whatever age you think is appropriate, give it to them. I would. Day three teen kids, I think that might not be wise early teens unless you think that’s not wise. I would say probably when they become I don’t let them get that social media at that .18. But every parent have to make that decision. I’m not here to make a decision for every parent, but I’m just simply saying it’s not wise if you got to give the unfettered access to the Internet. What is true? A smartphone, the computer, or whatever. I didn’t grow up with these things. Unfettered access to these things. And I think for most part I turned alright. I’m a little bit crazy, but I think I turned out for most part. All right. And again, as I said, dumb phones are still available people.

[Jay]

I just did a quick Google search for dumb phones or flip phones. You know they’re still in the eighty $9000 range. Wow.

[MCG]

Oh.

That’s fine, but they’re still available, and if you want to be able to call your child and let them know, hey, I’m coming to pick you up, I’ll send. Him. A text message. You can use a dumb phone. Yeah, and you’ll still get the message. Frost, you know, I remember one guy told. I mean, you know, I said to him, man, I don’t even know what people used to do before cell phones. And he said, I know when we wanted to get home, we’ll make a collect call in one of those pay phones. You can go in and make a collect call and the operator will pick up and the operator will ask you your name. And he said what they would do is that they will call the operator. That operator don’t want to make a call. It calls to their home. And when they ask in the name, the name will be come and get me Johnny something like. So when the operator asks the parent come and get me. Johnny wants to make a collect call. Do you accept? The parent says no. But they know that they need to go get little Johnny. So hey, any which way? This is that impossible? It is possible to manage these things. It is possible to protect your children from these things. Come. You know, as they say. Hello. High water. Whatever the case may be, you can protect your kids from these things because at the end of the day, you are the one who are paying for the services, the Internet, the phone, the computers or whatever that they.

[Jay]

That reminds me of a funny commercial where these new parents simply didn’t have enough money to get a cell phone plan. They made a collect call to their parents to announce the birth of their baby, and then he said, yeah, I’d like to make a collect call. First name John. Last name is we got a baby. It’s a boy. When the collect call went through. Of course, the dad was able to hear. The entire message and didn’t have to accept the collect call because they used that. That tactic there. That’s really funny.

[MCG]

Anyways, you’re listening to the roof embarrassed podcast we are talking about teens, devices and social media and reviewing clips from a recent Senate hearing between Ted Cruz and Mark Zuckerberg. We’ll be right back.

[Jay]

Hi, this is Jay. MCG and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to removingbarriers.net and subscribing to receive all things, removing barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating at removingbarriers.net/donate. Removing barriers, a clear view of the cross.

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[MCG]

Arija, we went to Ted Cruz grilling of Mark Zuckerberg. Now here’s Josh Hawley doing the same thing to Mark Zuckerberg.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Mr. Zuckerberg, let me start with you. Did I hear you say in your opening statement that there is no link between mental health and social media use?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, what I said is I think it’s important to look at. The. Science. I know it’s people widely talk about this is if that is something that’s already been proven. And I think that the bulk of the scientific evidence does not support that.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Well, really. Look, let me just remind you of some of the science from your own company. Instagram studied the effect of your platform on teenagers. Let me just read you some quotes from the Wall Street Journal’s report on this company. Researchers found that Instagram is harmful for a sizeable percentage of teenagers, most notably teenage girls. Here’s a quote from your own study quote. We make body image issues worse. For one in three teen girls. Here’s another quote. Teens blamed Instagram. This is your study for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups. That’s your study.

[MCG]

All right, so I believe here in my opinion, that Mark Zuckerberg is lying. I think he knows the dangers. And I would bet that his kids do not have Facebook, Instagram account, or at least do not have unfettered access to social media.

[MCG]

If he does give them this stuff, I think that they’re highly regulated, but not just me. I think he’s smart enough not to give his kids these things, but anyways.

[Jay]

Yeah, I would wholeheartedly agree. Zuckerberg is absolutely indefensible here, and I think he knows. Who’s that? He’s lying, and he knows he’s indefensible. Here. Of course, social media is harmful, perhaps equal to, or even more so than it is helpful. We become what we behold, and that is a form of meditation. You know, the Bible tells us that we are to meditate on the word of God, to meditate on the qualities and the. Attributes and the character. Of God. And so again we become what we behold. And so if we’re constantly looking upon something constantly exposed to that repetition, constantly exposed, constantly engaging with it all, we will become what we will behold. If you’ve got children now, I speak to this as an adult, and I can see the effect of social media on me when I’m on YouTube and I’m looking for the latest. Organizational video or clean with me video on how to keep your house clean. Type video you watch enough of those and you begin to wonder, well, why can’t I keep my house that clean? Why can’t I be that organized? Why can’t I be that diligent or that efficient? Or that productive? Well, you’ve got children on these platforms. Whose brains aren’t even fully developed yet, and all they’re seeing is everyone putting their best foot forward. And again, all of the negative stuff is minimized. Of course, that’s going to negatively affect the child. And so, you know, you mentioned earlier MCG, second Corinthians 10/12. I’ll read it again for we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they that measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise. I’m also going to bring up these verses, because people who say that the scriptures are outdated and they don’t apply for today, and that God doesn’t have something to say about social media. They clearly have not read the Bible. We should not be comparing ourselves amongst ourselves. Thus, second Corinthians 1012, but Psalm 1914 says let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer, there’s a lot in that verse that we can apply to the perils of social media, first of which is what are we beholding? What are we meditating? Upon what are we looking at? Memorizing, engaging with, thinking about chewing over and visualizing in our minds. We might think that just because we’re swiping now, there’s the short form contents as such as YouTube shorts and TikTok, but we might think that we’re not being affected every time we swipe, but we actually are. Think about when you watch a YouTube video you already know and you already memorize, and you’re already conditioned to, like, comment, share, subscribe. Every single video tells you to do that. Right. So that when you watch a video, you hardly don’t even hear them say that anymore because you already know. OK. I gotta like, comment, share and subscribe. I mean we don’t because we don’t have social media platforms, but like comment, share, subscribe, how do you think that that got implanted in our heads? Because every single video you watch is telling you to do that every single video you watch is telling you that here’s how you can be perfect. And this is how you can have a great life like mine, and they don’t show you the back story. We’re consuming that we’re meditating on it. The Bible says that what we should be meditating on are the things of God, Philippians 48 says finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true. Whoever things are honest whatsoever, things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever. Things are lovely whatsoever. Things are of good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. I think that when we consider the media that we consume very, very, very, very little of, it would actually. Square with this particular verse, very little of it would, if we’re honest with ourselves. Psalm 1/19/11 says thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. Clearly this scripture is talking about the word of God in terms of memorizing it and keeping it in our hearts. But there’s also an element of meditation there. Thinking about it, reviewing it.

[MCG]

Where are you?

[Jay]

Thinking about how you could take that word and apply it to your lives, do we realize that when we’re on social media, we’re doing the same thing, except it’s with the content that we see. So we take the content, let’s take these young girls, for example. Ohh. Her hair is beautiful or her eyes are beautiful or her nose is the perfect shape and mine’s not shaped like that. How can I look like that? And so you first you look at it, then you dwell on it, you engage on it and then you get to the point where you’re engaging with it, I should say. And Psalm 1 warns us about that, right. Blessed is the man that walketh not. In the.

[MCG]

Council.

[Jay]

And the Council is ungodly, or stand in the way of centers or sitteth in the seat of the scornful, I mean preachers talk about all the time, how first you’re walking by, then you’re standing in the near sitting. That’s the progression of those verses you’re dwelling, you’re imbibing the. These things. It’s incredible to think about and so as parents, of course, we’re talking about children in social media here. As parents, we need to be not just protecting our children, but teaching them how to wage that spiritual warfare because at some point they’re going to grow up and have to engage in social media. It’s in some way, in some fashion or another. Wouldn’t it be better if we equip? Our children, with the foundation for Spiritual warfare, for vetting all of that social media through the lens of script. So that they know not just what to engage with, but how. And so yeah. So Mark Zuckerberg saying ohh, you know, social media doesn’t affect people. Of course it does. Yes, it does. He’s lying. He knows it. And the whole world knows it. What concerns me is that he’s lying and he knows it. And he said it anyway. That’s what’s incredibly concerning.

[MCG]

Oh yeah. Well, as I said, these people have these things. Don’t. Science how many of us learn this song? The best part of waking up?

[Jay]

It’s Folgers in your cup.

[MCG]

I never set out to learn that. Nope. I’ve never once said, you know what I’m going to learn to sing that song, even though I didn’t sing in a key. I’m. To memorize it, I’m going to sing it while I’m, you know, walking along the way or driving. And I never put it on in my car and sing to it.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Right.

[Jay]

You didn’t write the lyrics down to memorize it. Nothing like that yet. Did…

[MCG]

No, it’s the same with social media. These people have these things don’t do science. But anyway, here’s clip 2 with Josh Hawley.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, we try to understand the the feedback and and how people feel about the services we can improve.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Wait a? Your own that your own study says that you make life worse for one in three teenage girls. You increase anxiety and depression. That’s what it says, and you’re here testifying to us and.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

No, senator, that’s not what it said.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Public that there’s no link you’ve been doing this for years. For years you’ve been coming in public and testifying Underoath that there’s absolutely no link. Your product is wonderful. The science is nascent, full speed ahead, while internally, you know full well your product is a disaster for teenagers, and yet you keep right on doing what you’re.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, that’s not true.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Doing.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

That’s not, that’s not true.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Sure. Let me let me let me show you some other facts. I know that you’re familiar with. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That’s not a question. That’s not a question. Those are facts.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

But when you can, you can. You can cherry pick data points if you want, but I mean that’s that’s not what the internal.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Mr. Zuckerberg, that’s. Not a question that’s these aren’t facts. Here, let me show you some more facts. Here are some. Here’s some information from a whistleblower who came before the Senate, testified Underoath in public. He worked for you, the senior executive. Here’s what he showed. He found when he studied your products. So, for example, this is girls between the ages of 13 and 15 years old, 37% of them reported that they had been exposed. To nudity on the platform, unwanted in the last seven days, 24% said that they had experienced unwanted sexual advances. They’ve been propositioned in the last seven days, 17% said they had encountered self harm content pushed at them in the last seven days. Now I know you’re familiar with these stats because he sent you an e-mail where he lined it all out. I mean, we’ve got a copy of it right here.

[MCG]

All right. So again, to me, Joshua is putting on a performance here, but he’s a politician. But as I said again, Mark is lying. I think the strategist says that about 10% of smokers develop some sort of problem because they smoke or this cancer or whatever the case may be. I think it’s like 20% of teenagers. Get addicted or really get severely mental issues because of or whatever other kind of issues because of social media. So social media has been around long enough and the data has been been collected long enough for us to know the dangers of it. And I think that’s well cemented and I might know of it. And I think we discussed that in the previous. But anyways, here is another clip with Josh Hawley and Mark Zuckerberg.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

My question is, who did you fire for this? Who got fired because of that?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, we study all of this because it’s important we want to improve.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Our service well, you just told me you studied it, but that there was no linkage.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Who did you fire? I said you mischaracterized 30.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

57% of teenage girls between 13 and 15 were exposed to unwanted nudity in a week on Instagram. You knew about it. Who did.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

You fire, senator. This is why we’re building.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

All who did you fire?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, that’s I don’t think that that’s who did you fire? I’m not going to answer that. That’s because you didn’t fire anybody, right? You didn’t take any significant action. It’s appropriate to talk about, like, individual decisions.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

It’s not appropriate. You know who’s sitting behind you? You’ve got families from across the nation whose children are either severely harmed or gone, and you don’t think it’s appropriate to take a talk about steps that you took. The fact that you didn’t fire a single person.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

I’m happy.

[MCG]

Joshua agreed has been smoggy. You know who should be fired as a question, because who should be fired is who should be. Creamed I’m wrapping my brain here. I’m like, who should Mark Zuckerberg fired? Ultimately, you’re gonna have to fire him, salvage the social media companies out to be blamed. Who is he going to fire his developers? Well, the developers get the instructions from somebody, so who should be fired, you know? Yeah. And the parents going to be fired. You know, I don’t know. That was just a crazy. I don’t get what he’s.

[Jay]

That was performance for sure, but it was easy low hanging fruit because he had the parents behind the CEO’s goading him on. It was completely performative. And again, like you said, who could he fire? It’s not a real question, and that’s not a good faith argument either.

[MCG]

Yeah, here’s the full clip from Josh.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Hawley, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Have you compensated any?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Steps that we check, let me see.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Of the victims. Sorry, have you compensated any of the victims? These girls have you compensated them?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

I don’t believe so. Why not?

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Don’t you think they deserve some compensation for what your platform has done? Help with counseling services, help with dealing with the issues that yours your services caused our.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator. Job is to make sure that we build tools to help keep people safe.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Are you going to compensate them?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, our job and what we take seriously is making sure that we build industry-leading tools to find harmful, to make and take it off the services and to build tools that empower parents.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Money to make money. So you didn’t take any action, you didn’t take any action, you didn’t fire anybody. You haven’t compensated a single victim. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. There’s families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the victims?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

That’s not true. That’s not. That’s not. What it said.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Would you like to do so? Now they’re here. You’re on national television. Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed by you? Show them the pictures. Would you like to apologize for what you’ve done to? These good people. I.

I’m sorry for everything that your calls on through terrible. No one should have to go through. The things that your families have have suffered, and This is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry leading efforts to to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things that. Your families have had to suffer.

[Jay]

You know why this gets under my skin? A little bit? Not because I think that CEO’s are are worthy of defending or anything along those lines. But as they’re sitting here, perform. Farming and having these conversations that are not in good faith, the issue doesn’t get solved because they’re over here chasing this rabbit hole or they’re chasing this red herring. And the issue of how to protect children on social media and on the Internet doesn’t get solved. That’s what gets under my skin when I hear the back and forth and. Of course, he scores political points because everyone looks at him and thinks ohh look, he’s really going after the CEO. Look at him really doing God’s work and nothing’s really happening here. Nothing is getting solved. Nothing. A step in the right direction in terms of protecting children.

[MCG]

Yeah, I didn’t look this up, but so I don’t know if either Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz or any other senators introduced a bill in the Senate, just changed a little, but my reply to you, Joshua, would be, hey, Josh, your senator changed the law. Did you even try? Did you put a bill in to say, hey, you know what? I’m going to try to change this.

[Jay]

Throughout the entire hearing, it’s almost a four hour hearing. I listened to the entire thing throughout the entire hearing. These senators were really pushing the CEO’s into a corner trying to get them to support five pieces of legislation that they have proposed and many others of their colleagues have proposed in order to quote. Protect children online. The 1st is the Stop Csam Act. The 2nd is the earn it act. The third is the SHIELD act. The 4th is the project Safe Childhood Act. And then the last was the report act. All of these, they appear to try and tackle this problem from a different perspective. So the stop Csam act, according to their website, supports victims and increases accountability and transparency on online platforms. The earn IT act removes the tech companies immunities. So people can sue them if someone used their platform to do something illegal or something along those lines. And so it removes that blanket immunity from civil and criminal liability under child sexual abuse material laws. This is from the website of the hearing, right, the shield. They say ensures that federal prosecutors have appropriate and effective tools to address non consensual distribution of sexual imagery. The project Safe Childhood Act modernizes the investigation and prosecution of online Child Exploitation crimes and the Report Act combats the rise in online child sexual exploitation by establishing new measures. To help strengthen the reporting of those crimes to the cyber tip line, so here’s what I heard and all five of those measures, which I’m sure are well-intentioned. I heard bigger government, more government. Bigger government, more governing, bigger government. That’s what I heard. Even though this is a worthy cause. And even though this really needs to happen, we do need to protect our children from the dangers of what we’ve encounter online. I’m concerned that in an emotional rush to protect our children, we are giving the. Government a lot more power than we want them to have. It happened in 2001 after 911 with the Patriot Act, and it seems like it’s happening again now. These laws have been proposed and set forward. It’s actually been several years now, at least three to five years, for some of them especially the earn it act well, the earn IT act has a lot of pushback because it would do away in many ways. It would do away with encryption. So you can imagine what what a problem that would be. So if they can remove encryption, then if a child has say, some type of sexual encounter.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Jay]

Like digital sexual encounter that they didn’t want without the encryption, investigators can go in there and track what happened with encryption. They can’t do that. So the idea of this act, in a nutshell is to remove that encryption. Well, if you remove encryption, you’ve got a bigger problem here. And so. I think they were really pushing for the CEO’s to back. In fact, often they would ask the CEO’s or do you commit here and now to supporting these bills and and almost every single time, with the exception of I think it was X every single time the CEO’s tried to say we have reservations about the implications of these proposed. Bills that we would like to discuss with you. Further, they tried to be reasonable about it. It sounded like, but of course because this is low hanging fruit because it’s performative because the parents of children who have been affected were there, they were just hammering these CEO’s when it could have been an opportunity to talk about legitimate steps that can be taken that wouldn’t necessarily affect our freedoms, wouldn’t necessarily affect. How we are able to move online? How we can decide how we want to protect our children? It could have gone that way, but it didn’t because of course this is a performance. A four hour performance which is quite unfortunate and terrible.

[MCG]

Yeah. Here’s a clip from Josh Hawley.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

You know. Why, Mr. Zuckerberg? Why should your company not be sued for this? Why is it that you can claim you hide behind a liability shield? You can’t be held accountable? Shouldn’t you be held accountable? Personally, Will you take personal responsibility?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I I think I’ve already answered this, I mean.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

This is we’ll try this again, will you take?

[The View Clip]

Yes.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Personal responsibility.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I view my job and the job of our company is building the best tools that we can to keep our community safe and to well. Senator, we’re doing an industry-leading effort. We build AI tools.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Well, you’re failing at that. Oh. That your product is killing people, will you personally commit to compensating the victims? You’re a billionaire. Will you commit to compensating the victims? We set up a compensation. Months with your money.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I think these are these are complicated, senator. These are complicated.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

With your money. Yes. That that’s not a complicated question. That’s a yes or no. Will you set up a victims compensation fund with your money? The money you made on these families sitting behind you? Yes or no?

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Senator, I don’t think that that’s my job is to make good tools. My my job is to.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Sounds like a no. Sounds like a no. Your job is to be responsible for what your company has done. You’ve made billions of dollars on the people sitting behind them. You here. You’ve done nothing to help them. You’ve done nothing to compensate them. You’ve done nothing to put it right. You could do so here today. And you should. You should.

[Mark Zuckerberg]

Make sure that.

[Senator Josh Hawley]

Which? Is.

[MCG]

Like that last clip of Josh Hawley, what can I say again? Objection, your honor. Badgering, badgering the witness. Objection, your honor. Accent answered? Yeah. Objection, your honor. Argumentative. How many objections can I have here? You know, I wish they would change the rules of the Senate and the House hearings that they must. Allow the witness as they call. And at least 30 seconds or more to answer without interruption.

[Jay]

Actually, that wouldn’t be a bad rule, and I think perhaps part of the reason why they felt like, of course it was performative, but perhaps part of the reason why they were asking the questions rapid fire like that is because each senator had only 7 minutes to address each of the.

[MCG]

This is crazy. We’ll change the rules.

[Jay]

Yeah, change your rules. There you go.

[MCG]

Extended to 8 hours because I remember there’s a clip of I’m not necessarily picking on ARC, but there’s a clip on YouTube of ASC talking in one of these, similar here in in the house and she was just asking the person question. Person didn’t even get to open their mouth to. Anything and she just move on the other one. It’s like you know you’ve.

[Jay]

You’re not asking questions at that point, you’re making a point. You’re yeah.

[MCG]

You’ve you’ve been performative, and then you go to someone else to back her up to say the same thing. It’s like these things are annoying to me. Yeah, they they accomplish nothing.

[Jay]

Which is terrible because this is something that really needs to be addressed by adults in the room.

[MCG]

But here’s an article by CNET. CNET is I will call it a technical blogging site, section 2:30, which is the law that protects Facebook and. Companies like Verizon and stuff like that from lawsuits Section 230 how it Shields Facebook and why Congress wants to change it. And this is back in 2021. This is like three years ago, a 25 year old law that Shields social media companies from lawsuits over content their users post is once again on the attack. This time it’s because a Facebook whistleblower who leaked thousands of internal documents about the company testify before Congress and urged greater oversight over the company for allegedly. Creating products that harm children’s stock division and weaken our demos. On Tuesday, Francis Hagan, a former Facebook product manager, sat with four Senate subcommittee for more than three hours and described how the social media giant has prioritized its profits over public good. She called on lawmakers to take action to change the rules that Facebook plays by and stop the many harms. It is now causing. We now know the truth about Facebook destructive impact, she said. I came forward at great personal risk because I believe we still have time to act. We must act now. I’m asking you, our elected representative, to act, Hagan, who outed herself Sunday evening during an interview with CBS News program 60 minutes. Has released 10s of 1000 pages of internal documents detailing the ways Facebook hid internal research the company had conducted that showed its platform, algorithms and business model put the health and well-being of the public, especially teens, at risk. She gave these documents to the security and Exchange Commission Congress. And reporters at the Wall Street Journal. Her testimony, she called on Congress to regulate Facebook and require more transparency from the company on its practices. She also urged lawmakers to reform a key federal law, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shield Internet companies from legal liability for content posted by its users. But she warned that focusing reform that would make Facebook only liable for content that his user posts would not be sufficient to fix Facebook problem. Instead, she suggests that lawmakers revised section 2:30 to make Facebook responsible for its algorithm, which are used to run content. In doing that, Hagan thinks the company would get rid of engagement based ranking, which fees a cycle of feeding harm, inflammatory or untrue content to users. So the other. Big thing here. Again, as I said earlier, because of these things drive the flesh when something come out that drive the flesh, you get a lot of clicks. You get a lot of commands and it ranks higher. Should that change? Yeah, maybe. Maybe if that change removing barriers might get more eyeballs, who knows? But I don’t think that solved the. Modify section 230 around content is very complicated because user generated content is something that companies have less control over, she said. They Facebook have 100% control over the algorithm and Facebook should not get a free pass on choices it makes to parasites, growth, viability and reactiveness over public safety. Again, the problem here again, this might sound good, but the problem here is that these companies make money through advertisements. If I make a post on only two person sees it, they make no money from it. However, if millions of people are looking at this post, it behooves them to promote it because they’re making money from it. And with continued haggen’s testimony comes that Congress scrutiny of the world’s largest social media network intensify, and as US lawmakers of both political parties look to make Facebook and other major tech platforms more accountable for harm done to users. Right now, Facebook has broad immunity. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat. In Connecticut, said during the hearing Tuesday, you can’t sue Facebook, you have no. Recourse, he said that section 230 should be reform. It is a common refrain from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who generally agree that changes need to be made to section 2:30. As a result, there is already a slew of legislation aimed at reforming the liability shield that’s being considered. Calls for reform have taken on new urgency. As social media sites battled a flood of troubling. Noted, including disinformation about coronavirus vaccine, the outcome of the US presidential election and the deadly attack on the US capital can get carried politically. The opinion that mine and now information that Facebook allegedly knowingly serves up harmful and devices content to be its users to drive engagement even when it knows this.

[Jay]

OK.

[MCG]

Content has been linked to user depression, self harm and even suicide. Republicans have widely called for the reform or repeal of the law because their perception that Silicon Valley powerhouse are biased against conservatives, views and work to censor conservatives like former President Donald Trump while giving liberal politicians a pass. Democrats agreed that reforms are needed, but they see the problem differently, arguing that section 230 prevents social media companies from doing more to moderate their platforms, such as taking down or limited hate speech and misinformation about COVID-19 tech companies say Section 230 protections, which shield them from liability for their users, posts. And also let them moderate harmful content without facing repercussions allowed online platforms to flourish. In the early days of the Internet and they see even well intended reforms as potential threats to the Internet. Targeting Section 230 is a messy, false solution that would undermine human. Right. Do more harm than good and actually solidify Facebook monopoly. Same thing similar to what you were saying, Jay, fight for the future director Evan Gear said in a statement. Instead, there is much clearer path for Congress to pass a federal data privacy law strong enough to effectively kill Facebook current business model. They should do that without delay. I can agree and that 100%, but I can agree, I think it should be illegal for data brokers and all these things to color our information is for it, for profit. Hmm. And that’s my opinion. I think that you should be able to go on the Internet and search for someone name and maybe the way they live general. And get a whole slew of the date of birth, all the address and all that. Stuff. By paying I take about the $2.00 that should be illegal anyways, Facebook has said previously that it plans to work with Congress and the industry as we consider options to reform, but the company had refuted haggen’s interpretation of the. Internal research and denied the company put profits before safety of its users. So anyways, I’m going to stay right there, but you can see this is not something new. This is 2024. They have been battling back and forth in since 2021 or even before that. And what to do with section 2:30 again, which is a law that protects, I think initially it was. Protect services like Verizon and cell phone companies and maybe even the your electric company from liability when you use their service to do harm. But again, I do put some blame on them, but I don’t think they should pay the brunt of the blame experts when it comes to children. Children are governed, quote and UN quote by parents and I think. Parents can do a whole lot more to protect their kids than they can do. Again, if we stop using their services. They will go out of business, but anyways, the question begs as we look to conclude the episode is, what does the Bible say about these things, if any? And I just want to go into something, brother David Sommerdorf in episode 17 share with us. And if you have never listened to episode 17, give it a listen. The name of it is the great God. Entertainment and brother David Samadov or evangelist David Sommerdorf share with US 10 principles of the Word of God. The first one was the appearance. 1st Thessalonians 522 abstain from all appearance of evil, and the question begged out of that. Is this our social media and devices putting evil or even the appearance of evil before your kids? Principle #2 the simplicity principle. Romans 16, verse 19. For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore, on your behalf. But yet I would have you. Why? Phase onto that which is good and simple concerning evil, the question that come out of that is this are social media and devices keeping your kids simple concerning evil, the conformity principle will be the third one and that will be Romans 12 and verse two and be not conformed to this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind that he may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And the question that come out of that, of course is this are social media and devices helping your child conform to this world or are they helping transforming your child by the renewing of their minds to the word of God? The food principle is the provision principle, and that comes out of Romans 13 and verse 14, but put he. On the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. To fulfill the lust thereof. Of course, the question that come out of this is this. Our social media and devices making provision for the flesh of your teens. Important one there. Principle #5 the stumbling block principle Romans 14 and verse 13 let us not therefore judge one another any more, but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. The question for this principal parents are social media and devices. Creating this stumbling block for your children. Are you putting a stumbling back for your children by giving them access to social media and devices? Principle 6, the sincerity principle, Colossians Chapter 3, and verse 23, and whatever he do, do it heartily. As to the Lord and not unto man, question that come out of this are social media devices usage being done for the Lord? The glorification principle, 1st Corinthians 10, verse 31. Whether therefore, he eat? Or drink or whatever he do, do all to the glory of God, our social media. Here and device usage being done for the glory of God will be the question to come out of that. The 8th principle will be the thankfulness principle. Of course, for Sessions 518 in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you, our social media device is making your child more thankful and grateful. Would be the question that come out of that the practical principle collections 2 verse 6. As we have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, the walk he in him, and the question to come out of this our social media and devices, helping your child walk closer to the Lord, and then the 10 principle will be the redemption principle. Ephesians 5 and verse 16, redeeming the time because the days are. Evil, our social media devices redeeming the time or wasting it would be the question that come out of that. So those are 10 principles that you can ask yourself whether not you should give your kids these devices and whether or not these violation of any of these principles. And I also if you violates any of these principles, that again they’re speaking for myself. I don’t think it’s wise for you as a parent to be giving your child. Devices, or at least unfettered access to these things. And of course, in episode 54, brother David Sommerdorf shared his testimony, and while he was sharing his testimony, he gave us the tree as of child rearing. Here is it in whether Sommerdorf own words in the group in a Christian. When you say with a moral home where the father hey was a heavy hand and he keep the kids in line, the mother was. That’s sweet. Welcome in hand. Yeah. Do you think we have lost that in society today? So kids growing up, even all American kids like you maybe not have that conscience. That can guide them and say, hey, that’s wrong, that’s right.

[Bro. David Sommerdorf]

Without a doubt, without a doubt. I remember at one point a number of years ago, before we got on the road, doing what we do. We’ve been out there for over 20 years now in evangelism. I remember just thinking on my parents, thinking on my life and how I was brought up. And the question I had was why and how did lost parents. Raise better children than, say, parents do today and I chewed on that for a while and I prayed about it, and I begin to go through Scripture and I begin to think about what my dad and mom put in. My life as a youngster, and they weren’t even believers. They weren’t Christians. They got saved. After I did, I was the first one to come to the Lord. Yeah, but they gave us 3 character qualities. And I’ll never forget it. They gave us a respect for authority. There was non negotiable.

[MCG]

That’s often.

[Bro. David Sommerdorf]

That is lost today and I can just throw this out. The greatest thing a mom and dad can do is teach their children the fear of the Lord. That’s more important first than Jesus saves. That is a big deal because. Jesus saves you from what he doesn’t just save you to God. He saves you from God and if you remove the fear of the Lord, you’ve removed the absolute reason someone needs Jesus to be saved. So they taught me to fear God. They taught me respect for authority. Then they taught me restraint. That led to obedience, and then they taught me responsibility for actions. I mean, if I did the crime, I did the time mom and Dad did not bail me out with the teachers. In fact, they sided with the teachers every time over me because they knew who I was. I called that the three R’s of child rearing and there were character qualities lost parents put in their kids. And if you had asked them why? Why do you raise him this way? They would have said. I don’t know. That’s just how you raise kids. Well, what it was was up until the 60s. Biblical principles for child rearing were woven into society. That’s how you raised them. We were a Christian nation founded on those values. But in the 60s, God got voted out, and now the only place you’ll find those same qualities. Will not be. Society will be the word of God, I tell believers. I tell people all the time. If you’re looking to society to determine how to raise. Children, their values aren’t what they used to be. God got voted out a long time ago. You have got to get your values from the word of God. Society isn’t going to back you up on how to raise your children. God will, and we’re to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So fascinating thought, though Dad and Mom prepared me for salvation and never realized it. Yeah.

[MCG]

All right, so if you didn’t get that, that was. On respect for authority to restrain that led to obedience and three responsibility for actions, we have lost that in our society today. And you mentioned it first before Philippians 4, verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest whatsoever, things are just. Worth of things are pure whatsoever. Things are lovely whatsoever. Things are of good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise. Think on these things, and of course the concurrence 10/3. The six for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, carving down imagination and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. To bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. You seen here that the Bible is saying, hey, there’s a better part. And of course, if you’re not save the path is through salvation. My parents, the 10 principles are even the Philippines 4, verse 8 principle is it honest? Is it just? Is it pure? Is it lovely? Is it of good report, you know? But anyways, we’ll end it, right there…

[Jay]

This is the Removing barriers podcast. If the podcast or the blog were a blessing to you, leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don’t forget to share the podcast with your friends. Removing barriers, a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

Thank you for listening. To get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers. Go to: removingbarriers.net. This has been the removing barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clear view of the cross.