{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-questions-facebook-whistleblower-big-techs-rampant-child-exploitation-problems/", "Hawley Questions Facebook Whistleblower on Big Tech\u2019s Rampant Child Exploitation Problems", "2023-11-07", "2023", "2023-11", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Josh Hawley", "H001089", "www.hawley.senate.gov", "hawley", "https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) heard testimony from Meta Whistleblower Arturo B\u00e9jar, the former Director of Engineering for Protect and Care at Facebook. The hearing took place in the Senate Judiciary Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, where Senator Hawley serves as Ranking Member.\n\nDuring his opening remarks, Senator Hawley called out Big Tech for their extensive lobbying efforts to kill any legislation attempting to regulate the industry.\n\n\u201cBig tech is the biggest, most powerful lobbying in the United States Congress,\u201dsaid Senator Hawley. \u201cThey spend millions upon millions upon millions of dollars every year to lobby this body, and the the truth is\u2014as every reporter in this room knows, and I hope you\u2019ll report it after this hearing\u2014they do it successfully. They successfully shut down every meaningful piece of legislation every year.\u201d\n\nHe continued, \u201cIt is time for it to be broken, and the only way I know to break it is to bring the truth forward. And that\u2019s why we are so glad Mr. B\u00e9jar that you are here today to do it.\u201d\n\nClick here or above to watch the full exchange.\n\nSenator Hawley also questioned B\u00e9jar about a 2021 memo that B\u00e9jar had written to Facebook executives highlighting the platform\u2019s rampant child protection failures.\n\n\u201cIn that memo, you disclosed to them that according to your own research, one in eight children, children now, had experienced unwanted sexual advances within the last seven days,\u201d said Senator Hawley. \u201cAnd about one in three\u2014I think it was 27%\u2014had experienced unwanted sexual advances outside of the seven day window.\u201d\n\nWhen Senator Hawley asked B\u00e9jar about the executives\u2019 responses to his email, B\u00e9jar revealed that executives at Facebook, including Mark Zuckerberg himself, ignored his findings. Senator Hawley stressed that change would only come through legal accountability:", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:49:58Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-questions-facebook-whistleblower-big-techs-rampant-child-exploitation-problems/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.9494639709591866, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}