Mark Zuckerberg’s Apology to Teens Harmed by Instagram Was the Right Thing to Do, but It Missed the Most Important Point

On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, and other social media platforms testified during a Senate Committee hearing on social media. It was, as you might expect, not especially productive. Of course, these hearings aren’t meant to be productive, they’re meant to be theater. Everyone involved is performing for an audience. 

Senators hope to get their sound bite on the record or catch a witness saying the quiet part out loud in an attempt to score political points. Generally, the senators are much better at this, so the CEOs just try to say as little as possible.

There was, however, a particularly powerful moment during today’s hearing, when Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was challenged by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to apologize to the families of teens who have been harmed by Instagram.

“Thirty-seven percent of teenage girls between 13 and 15 were exposed to unwanted nudity in a week on Instagram. You knew about it,” Hawley said. “Who did you fire?”

“Senator, this is why we’re building all these tools,” Zuckerberg tries to respond, to which, Hawley simply interjects, “Who did you fire?” 

If the thing you want to know is how Meta is trying to solve the problem, you might want to hear his answer, but that isn’t actually what most politicians are interested in. They’re mostly interested in scoring points while the television cameras are pointed at them, and asking questions that put a tech CEO on the spot–even if it isn’t one they can answer–is a senator’s favorite pastime.

“Let me ask you this,” Hawley later says. “There are families of victims here today. Have you apologized to victims? Would you like to do so now? They’re here, you’re on national television. Would you like to apologize for what you’ve done to these good people?”

If you’ve ever watched one of these hearings–which seems unlikely since most people have far more interesting and important things to do with their lives than watch three hours of unproductive political theater–you know that this is a moment Hawley had been hoping for.

The goal is obviously to put Zuckerberg in a no-win situation–the exact kind of situation no CEO wants to be in. To his credit, Zuckerberg rose to the occasion–literally. 

Zuckerberg deserves credit for recognizing at that moment that the only reasonable response when challenged by Hawley is to stand up, turn around to face the gallery, and apologize. I don’t think Hawley was expecting him to do that, but that’s what he did.

“I’m sorry for everything that you have all been through,” Zuckerberg said to families holding up photos of teens who had been harmed. “It’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered, and this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things that your families have had to suffer.”

I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, this was the right thing to do. There was nothing else Zuckerberg could have done to come off looking any better. Zuckerberg has been here before, and his performances are largely the same. He comes across as incredibly intelligent, but his answers are almost entirely devoid of empathy, which makes him seem robotic. 

Standing up and addressing people who have experienced harm because of the company he leads is the only acceptable thing to do in that moment. 

The problem is, he didn’t actually apologize. Yes, he said the words “I’m sorry,” but if you listen carefully, he means the kind of sorry you feel when something sad happens to someone else, not the kind of sorry you feel when you’re the one that caused it.

That’s pretty typical of tech CEOs, especially Zuckerberg. His answers are almost always some version of trying to convey that Meta takes the problem of online abuse, harassment, and exposure to inappropriate content very seriously while also holding firm to the line that it isn’t the company’s fault. 

His statement to the victims follows the same pattern. “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” he begins. But he doesn’t take responsibility. In fact, he claims that Meta is doing all the right things to combat the bad things other people might do on the platform. There’s no sense of acknowledgment that it might be the way the platform is built that is the worst bad thing. 

I think Zuckerberg deserves some credit for standing up in the room this afternoon, but, ultimately, his apology missed the most important point. None of this happened because there are bad people on the internet. It happened because of the platform his company built. Any real apology has to begin with acknowledging and taking responsibility for that. Otherwise, it just misses the most important point.