The Big Story 

Meta is facing Congress’s ire once again over its approach to online safety, after several current and former employees came forward with allegations that the tech giant attempted to “bury” findings about safety concerns across its platforms — particularly newer virtual and augmented reality products. 

© Allison Robbert

Six current and former Meta employees detailed concerns about the company’s handling of user data and its approach toward safety research following previous whistleblower complaints in documents shared with Congress. 

“Meta has knowingly, willfully, intentionally swung the door wide open on exposing these children to social media harms when they are on their platform,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said Tuesday ahead of a hearing with two of the whistleblowers, former Meta researchers Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage. 

They have accused Meta of doctoring and restricting research into safety concerns in an effort to avoid legal liability, noting a “vast and negative change” following the revelations by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021. 

Haugen appeared before Congress nearly four years ago, alleging the company was aware of the negative impacts of its platforms on young users but chose to prioritize profits over people.  

After these revelations, the whistleblowers said several research areas, including youth and product harm issues, were deemed “sensitive” and came under the scrutiny of Meta’s legal team. 

“Put differently: after Ms. Haugen exposed Meta’s internal research which established leadership’s explicit knowledge about the platform’s harms toward children, Meta redefined the scope of the research in order to establish plausible deniability while simultaneously publicly stating that it has increased tools and systems to mitigate those harms,” a disclosure to Congress reads. 

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone pushed back on the allegations, arguing the claims are “nonsense” and based on “selectively leaked internal documents” selected to “craft a false narrative.” 

“The truth is there was never any blanket prohibition on conducting research with young people and, since the start of 2022, Meta approved nearly 180 Reality Labs-related studies on issues including youth safety and well-being,” he said in a statement. 

Read more in a full report at TheHill.com later tonight.

Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, I’m Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.

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Crypto Corner 

Senate Democrats release market structure wishlist

© Mark Schiefelbein, Associated Press

Welcome to Crypto Corner, a new feature in The Hill’s Technology newsletter focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington.

A dozen Senate Democrats on Tuesday laid out the key principles they hope to see in a bill regulating the cryptocurrency market. 

The framework, put forward by Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and other crypto-friendly Democrats, offers up their view on the central issues underpinning market structure legislation. 

“The framework is a substantive road map to guide what we hope will be robust and fruitful bipartisan negotiations and ultimately, a bipartisan product,” they said in a statement.

“Achieving a strong, bipartisan outcome will require time and cannot be rushed. We look forward to working on this with our Republican colleagues.”   

Senate Republicans released their own discussion draft in July, which they updated last week. However, they have yet to score any Democratic support. 

The Democrats’ framework calls for:

• Exclusive jurisdiction for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over non-security crypto markets
• Integrating digital assets and their platforms into the existing regulatory framework at the Securities and Exchange Comission (SEC) 
• Creating an “appropriate and effective” oversight regime for decentralized finance protocols and platforms
• Registration of digital asset platforms as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act
• Blocking elected officials and their family members from issuing, endorsing or profiting from digital assets
• Mandating commissioners from both parties sit at the SEC and CFTC to create a quorum for digital asset rulemakings

A MESSAGE FROM INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION

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