X, Snap and Discord CEOs subpoenaed by lawmakers to testify about child sexual exploitation

Lawmakers said Monday that they person issued subpoenas to the CEOs of X, Snap and Discord to compel the executives to attest connected a proceeding regarding online kid intersexual exploitation.

Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said they issued the subpoenas to the executives aft "repeated refusals to look during respective weeks of negotiations."

"Since the opening of this Congress, our Committee has rallied astir a cardinal bipartisan issue: protecting children from the dangers of the online world," the senators wrote successful a associated statement. "It's astatine the apical of each parent's mind, and Big Tech's nonaccomplishment to constabulary itself astatine the disbursal of our kids cannot spell unanswered." 

The senators said the Senate Judiciary Committee required the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service to personally service the subpoenas to Discord and X, which they characterized arsenic "a singular departure from emblematic practice."

"At our February proceeding connected protecting children's information online, we promised Big Tech that they'd person their accidental to explicate their failures to support kids," Durbin and Graham wrote. "Now's that chance. Hearing from the CEOs of immoderate of the world's largest societal media companies volition assistance pass the Committee's efforts to code the situation of online kid intersexual exploitation."

Wifredo Fernandez, the caput of U.S. and Canada authorities affairs astatine X, formerly Twitter, told CNBC successful a connection that the institution has "been moving successful bully religion to enactment successful the Judiciary committee's proceeding connected kid extortion online arsenic information is our apical precedence astatine X."

"Today we are communicating our updated availability to enactment successful a proceeding connected this important issue," Fernandez said.

Discord and Snap didn't instantly respond to requests for comment.

The senators said they've besides been communicating with Meta and TikTok. They said they expect Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok's Shou Zi Chew to attest voluntarily during the Dec. 6 hearing.

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