The Gap Between What Big Tech Says and What It Does

Every major tech platform has a press release about child safety. Google promises "a safer experience online." Amazon says it takes child protection "extremely seriously." TikTok touts "age-appropriate privacy settings."

Then their trade groups go to court to kill the laws that would actually enforce any of it.

According to the Tech Transparency Project, tech-funded lobbying group NetChoice filed suit in December 2022 to block California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act — a law modeled on a U.K. framework already in force — before it could even take effect. NetChoice argued the law violates the First Amendment by "telling sites how to manage constitutionally protected speech." The legal strategy bought time while the case wound through the courts.

The Lawsuits Are Starting to Land

Courts are not being patient anymore.

A New Mexico jury found that Meta misled users about platform safety and enabled sexual exploitation of young users, according to WIFR. The damages: $375 million. In a separate California ruling from March 25, 2026, a jury found Meta and Google-owned YouTube negligently designed their platforms to be addictive to minors.

Meta vowed to appeal both. A Meta spokesperson told reporters the company will "vigorously" defend its record of protecting teens. The company is appealing a jury verdict that found they negligently addicted children to their platform.

Congress Held 40 Hearings. Nothing Passed.

On January 31, 2024, the Senate Judiciary Committee hauled in some of Silicon Valley's biggest names. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Shou Chew of TikTok, Linda Yaccarino of X Corp., and Evan Spiegel of Snap all testified at the hearing titled "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," according to Tech Policy Press.

The Dirksen Senate Office Building was packed with grieving families holding photos of children they lost. Young advocates wore black T-shirts reading "I'm worth more than $270" — a reference to leaked Meta internal communications that assigned a Lifetime Value of roughly $270 to a 13-year-old user.

Senate Judiciary leaders promised this hearing would be "one of the last" before real legislative action. That was 2024. According to Tech Policy Press, not one senator provided a concrete timeline for moving legislation forward.

Congress has held nearly 40 hearings on children and social media since 2017. Big Tech has spent multiple billions on lobbying. There is zero federal protection law.

The Bill That's Sitting There Doing Nothing

Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) reintroduced the STOP CSAM Act following the jury verdicts, according to WIFR. The bill targets online child sexual abuse material. It cleared committee unanimously — bipartisan, no opposition.

It is sitting on the Senate floor waiting for a vote.

"Big Tech will not reform on its own," Durbin told reporters. "It has shown time and again that if given the choice, it will choose profits over people."

Hawley didn't pull punches either: "Big Tech's profits are coming from the exploitation of children. No amount of profit justifies destroying the lives, the futures, the hopes, and the dreams of our children."

A unanimous committee vote. Bipartisan Senate support. And the bill cannot get a floor vote. Someone should explain to Americans why that is.

What Mainstream Coverage Gets Wrong

Left-leaning outlets tend to frame this as a corporate regulation story — Big Tech bad, government good. Right-leaning outlets like Fox News frame it as a parental rights and culture war issue.

Both miss the core issue: this is a lobbying story.

Tech Transparency Project documented that while Google, Amazon, and TikTok were issuing public statements about child safety, their trade groups were actively lobbying against state-level child safety bills in at least nine states — Minnesota, Utah, and others that introduced legislation modeled on California's law. The companies funded litigation and legislative opposition simultaneously.

This is a specific industry using money to block laws that protect children from documented harm.

Durbin's comparison to Big Tobacco is apt and underreported. He spent decades fighting cigarette companies who internally documented health risks while publicly denying them. Internal Meta documents showing a dollar value assigned to a 13-year-old user are the 21st-century equivalent of the tobacco industry's internal research on addiction.

What This Means for Real People

If you have a child with a social media account, here's the situation right now: federal law has not been updated to reflect the modern internet. The platforms are engineered — by design, as juries have now confirmed — to maximize engagement, including engagement from minors.

The only thing currently creating accountability is civil litigation. That means individual families going up against companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars in court. That is an unequal fight, and it is not a system.

A unanimous Senate committee vote and a stack of jury verdicts later, the STOP CSAM Act still hasn't gotten a floor vote. The Senate Majority Leader sets the floor schedule. Someone should be asked directly why this bill isn't moving.

Big Tech spent millions to stop these laws. Congress let them. The bill of goods being sold to American families — that these platforms care about their children — just cost Meta $375 million to say out loud in a courtroom. And it will cost more.