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Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Erin Scott | Reuters

U.S. lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle agree on virtually nothing these days. The exception is when the topic is Facebook.

Republicans and Democrats grilled Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, on Thursday, in a hearing before the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection. Antigone, who testified by video, was called to answer questions about Instagram’s impact on the mental health of teens and Facebook’s efforts to build more products targeting children.

The hearing, titled “Protecting Kids Online: Facebook, Instagram, and Mental Health Harms,” follows a series of Wall Street Journal reports earlier this month that were based on internal studies conducted by Facebook researchers. Those stories revealed that Facebook is aware of the harmful effects of Instagram on the mental health of young users. In particular, Facebook’s own studies showed that 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced their desire to commit suicide back to Instagram.

Davis answered questions for close to three hours, and listened as multiple senators compared Facebook to the tobacco industry, which for years knowingly hid what it knew about the dangers associated with the products it was selling.

“Facebook is just like Big Tobacco, pushing a product that they know is harmful to the health of young people, pushing it to them early, all so Facebook can make money,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

Here are the highlights from Thursday’s hearing:

Facebook Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis speaks during a roundtable discussion on cyber safety and technology at the White House March 20, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Facebook can’t hold itself accountable

Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chair of the subcommittee, kicked off the hearing by accusing Facebook of showing that it’s incapable of holding itself accountable. Blumenthal said the Journal stories and the Facebook whistleblower who provided the documents gave “deep insight into Facebook’s relentless campaign to recruit and exploit young users.”

“We now know that while Facebook publicly denies that Instagram is deeply harmful for teens, privately Facebook researchers and experts have been ringing the alarm for years,” Blumenthal said. “We now know that Facebook routinely puts profits ahead of kids’ online safety, we know it chooses the growth of its products over the wellbeing of our children, and we now know that it is indefensibly delinquent in acting to protect them.”

Blumenthal also noted that Facebook’s documents proved the company had been untruthful in prior correspondence with members of the Senate.

He said that in August, he and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., ranking member of the subcommittee, wrote to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and asked, “Has Facebook research ever found that its platforms and products have a negative effect on children’s and teens’ mental health or well-being?”

The company said in response, “We are not aware of a consensus among studies or experts about how much screen time is too much.”

“That response was simply untrue,” Blumenthal said. “It knows the evidence of harm to teens is substantial and specific to Instagram.”

Senator Ed Markey speaks at the Back the Thrive Agenda press conference at the Longworth Office Building on September 10, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Jemal Countess | Getty Images

Facebook is non-committal on Instagram Kids

One of the central issues of concern to lawmakers on Thursday was Facebook’s Instagram Kids product.

The project, first reported by BuzzFeed in March and further exposed by the Journal, led Facebook to announce this week that it will pause development of an Instagram app for people under the age of 13.

Throughout the hearing, senators asked Davis if Facebook would commit to shelving Instagram Kids for good.

“Do you promise not to launch a site that includes features such as like buttons and follower counts that allow children to quantify popularity?” asked Markey.

Davis was non-committal and said the company will look further into what features make the most sense for children.

“Sen. Markey, those are the kinds of features that we will be talking about with our experts trying to understand in fact what is most age appropriate and what isn’t age appropriate, and we will discuss those features with them of course,” Davis said.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) questions U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to examine the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 14, 2021 .
Bill O’Leary | Pool | Reuters

Facebook cherry picks the research it shares

On Wednesday, Facebook released two slide decks with its research on Instagram’s impact on teen mental health. The company published those decks knowing the Journal was about to release all of the documents that contributed to its reporting.

The Journal ended up publishing six decks, with far more information than Facebook provided to the public. Facebook also included annotations that often discredited the work of its own researchers.

Davis told senators at the hearing that the research was not complete and or framed incorrectly. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said her answers don’t add up and asked if the company planned to release all of its research to the public.

“You’re telling us, ‘If only you knew the full research,’ and then at the same time, you’re not releasing the research. So which is it?” Cruz asked.

Davis said the company was in the process of determining what additional research it could release.

“So you’ve cherry picked the ones you want us to see,” Cruz said.

Cruz then asked Davis about the research showing the percentage of teens in the U.S. and U.K. who trace their suicidal desires back to Instagram. Davis said those stats were a mischaracterization of the company’s research.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, asks questions during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC, April 27, 2021.
Tasos Katopodis | Pool | Reuters

Big Tobacco playbook

In his opening remarks, Blumenthal highlighted findings from Facebook’s research, showing that many teens feel addicted to their use of Instagram.

“In truth, Facebook has taken Big Tobacco’s playbook,” he said. “It has hidden its own research on addiction and the toxic effects of its products, it has attempted to deceive the public and us in Congress about what it knows, and it has weaponized childhood vulnerabilities against children themselves.”

Sen. Markey echoed those remarks.

“Instagram is that first childhood cigarette meant to get teens hooked early, exploiting the peer pressure of popularity and ultimately endangering their health,” he said.

‘We don’t actually do finsta’

As in seemingly every hearing involving Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley, there was a moment underscoring how little lawmakers often understand about the nuances of the internet.

Toward the end of the hearing, Blumenthal took the opportunity to ask Davis about “finsta,” a term that refers to Instagram accounts that aren’t associated with someone’s actual identity. Finsta accounts are often used to snoop on other users’ posts in an anonymous way.

“Will you commit to ending finsta?” Blumenthal asked.

Davis paused, before responding, “Senator, again let me explain. We don’t actually do finsta.”

Blumenthal followed by asking, “Finsta is one of your products or services. We’re not talking about Google or Apple. It’s Facebook correct?”

“Finsta is slang for a type of account,” Davis said.

The conversation was reminiscent of an exchange at a congressional hearing in 2018. Orrin Hatch, a Republic senator from Utah who has since retired, asked Zuckerberg, “How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?”

It’s commonly known that Facebook has become one of the world’s most valuable companies through its sophisticated advertising that’s used by most of the largest businesses to target potential customers.

“Senator, we run ads,” Zuckerberg said.

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How Elon Musk’s plan to slash government agencies and regulation may benefit his empire

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How Elon Musk’s plan to slash government agencies and regulation may benefit his empire

Elon Musk’s business empire is sprawling. It includes electric vehicle maker Tesla, social media company X, artificial intelligence startup xAI, computer interface company Neuralink, tunneling venture Boring Company and aerospace firm SpaceX. 

Some of his ventures already benefit tremendously from federal contracts. SpaceX has received more than $19 billion from contracts with the federal government, according to research from FedScout. Under a second Trump presidency, more lucrative contracts could come its way. SpaceX is on track to take in billions of dollars annually from prime contracts with the federal government for years to come, according to FedScout CEO Geoff Orazem.

Musk, who has frequently blamed the government for stifling innovation, could also push for less regulation of his businesses. Earlier this month, Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were tapped by Trump to lead a government efficiency group called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

In a recent commentary piece in the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that DOGE will “pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.” They went on to say that many existing federal regulations were never passed by Congress and should therefore be nullified, which President-elect Trump could accomplish through executive action. Musk and Ramaswamy also championed the large-scale auditing of agencies, calling out the Pentagon for failing its seventh consecutive audit. 

“The number one way Elon Musk and his companies would benefit from a Trump administration is through deregulation and defanging, you know, giving fewer resources to federal agencies tasked with oversight of him and his businesses,” says CNBC technology reporter Lora Kolodny.

To learn how else Elon Musk and his companies may benefit from having the ear of the president-elect watch the video.

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Why X’s new terms of service are driving some users to leave Elon Musk’s platform

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Why X's new terms of service are driving some users to leave Elon Musk's platform

Elon Musk attends the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, Nov. 14, 2024.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

X’s new terms of service, which took effect Nov. 15, are driving some users off Elon Musk’s microblogging platform. 

The new terms include expansive permissions requiring users to allow the company to use their data to train X’s artificial intelligence models while also making users liable for as much as $15,000 in damages if they use the platform too much. 

The terms are prompting some longtime users of the service, both celebrities and everyday people, to post that they are taking their content to other platforms. 

“With the recent and upcoming changes to the terms of service — and the return of volatile figures — I find myself at a crossroads, facing a direction I can no longer fully support,” actress Gabrielle Union posted on X the same day the new terms took effect, while announcing she would be leaving the platform.

“I’m going to start winding down my Twitter account,” a user with the handle @mplsFietser said in a post. “The changes to the terms of service are the final nail in the coffin for me.”

It’s unclear just how many users have left X due specifically to the company’s new terms of service, but since the start of November, many social media users have flocked to Bluesky, a microblogging startup whose origins stem from Twitter, the former name for X. Some users with new Bluesky accounts have posted that they moved to the service due to Musk and his support for President-elect Donald Trump.

Bluesky’s U.S. mobile app downloads have skyrocketed 651% since the start of November, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. In the same period, X and Meta’s Threads are up 20% and 42%, respectively. 

X and Threads have much larger monthly user bases. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates X had 318 million monthly users as of October. That same month, Meta said Threads had nearly 275 million monthly users. Bluesky told CNBC on Thursday it had reached 21 million total users this week.

Here are some of the noteworthy changes in X’s new service terms and how they compare with those of rivals Bluesky and Threads.

Artificial intelligence training

X has come under heightened scrutiny because of its new terms, which say that any content on the service can be used royalty-free to train the company’s artificial intelligence large language models, including its Grok chatbot.

“You agree that this license includes the right for us to (i) provide, promote, and improve the Services, including, for example, for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type,” X’s terms say.

Additionally, any “user interactions, inputs and results” shared with Grok can be used for what it calls “training and fine-tuning purposes,” according to the Grok section of the X app and website. This specific function, though, can be turned off manually. 

X’s terms do not specify whether users’ private messages can be used to train its AI models, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.

“You should only provide Content that you are comfortable sharing with others,” read a portion of X’s terms of service agreement.

Though X’s new terms may be expansive, Meta’s policies aren’t that different. 

The maker of Threads uses “information shared on Meta’s Products and services” to get its training data, according to the company’s Privacy Center. This includes “posts or photos and their captions.” There is also no direct way for users outside of the European Union to opt out of Meta’s AI training. Meta keeps training data “for as long as we need it on a case-by-case basis to ensure an AI model is operating appropriately, safely and efficiently,” according to its Privacy Center. 

Under Meta’s policy, private messages with friends or family aren’t used to train AI unless one of the users in a chat chooses to share it with the models, which can include Meta AI and AI Studio.

Bluesky, which has seen a user growth surge since Election Day, doesn’t do any generative AI training. 

“We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so,” Bluesky said in a post on its platform Friday, confirming the same to CNBC as well.

Liquidated damages

Bluesky CEO: Our platform is 'radically different' from anything else in social media

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The Pentagon’s battle inside the U.S. for control of a new Cyber Force

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The Pentagon's battle inside the U.S. for control of a new Cyber Force

A recent Chinese cyber-espionage attack inside the nation’s major telecom networks that may have reached as high as the communications of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance was designated this week by one U.S. senator as “far and away the most serious telecom hack in our history.”

The U.S. has yet to figure out the full scope of what China accomplished, and whether or not its spies are still inside U.S. communication networks.

“The barn door is still wide open, or mostly open,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee told the New York Times on Thursday.

The revelations highlight the rising cyberthreats tied to geopolitics and nation-state actor rivals of the U.S., but inside the federal government, there’s disagreement on how to fight back, with some advocates calling for the creation of an independent federal U.S. Cyber Force. In September, the Department of Defense formally appealed to Congress, urging lawmakers to reject that approach.

Among one of the most prominent voices advocating for the new branch is the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank, but the issue extends far beyond any single group. In June, defense committees in both the House and Senate approved measures calling for independent evaluations of the feasibility to create a separate cyber branch, as part of the annual defense policy deliberations.

Drawing on insights from more than 75 active-duty and retired military officers experienced in cyber operations, the FDD’s 40-page report highlights what it says are chronic structural issues within the U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), including fragmented recruitment and training practices across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

“America’s cyber force generation system is clearly broken,” the FDD wrote, citing comments made in 2023 by then-leader of U.S. Cyber Command, Army General Paul Nakasone, who took over the role in 2018 and described current U.S. military cyber organization as unsustainable: “All options are on the table, except the status quo,” Nakasone had said.

Concern with Congress and a changing White House

The FDD analysis points to “deep concerns” that have existed within Congress for a decade — among members of both parties — about the military being able to staff up to successfully defend cyberspace. Talent shortages, inconsistent training, and misaligned missions, are undermining CYBERCOM’s capacity to respond effectively to complex cyber threats, it says. Creating a dedicated branch, proponents argue, would better position the U.S. in cyberspace. The Pentagon, however, warns that such a move could disrupt coordination, increase fragmentation, and ultimately weaken U.S. cyber readiness.

As the Pentagon doubles down on its resistance to establishment of a separate U.S. Cyber Force, the incoming Trump administration could play a significant role in shaping whether America leans toward a centralized cyber strategy or reinforces the current integrated framework that emphasizes cross-branch coordination.

Known for his assertive national security measures, Trump’s 2018 National Cyber Strategy emphasized embedding cyber capabilities across all elements of national power and focusing on cross-departmental coordination and public-private partnerships rather than creating a standalone cyber entity. At that time, the Trump’s administration emphasized centralizing civilian cybersecurity efforts under the Department of Homeland Security while tasking the Department of Defense with addressing more complex, defense-specific cyber threats. Trump’s pick for Secretary of Homeland Security, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, has talked up her, and her state’s, focus on cybersecurity.

Former Trump officials believe that a second Trump administration will take an aggressive stance on national security, fill gaps at the Energy Department, and reduce regulatory burdens on the private sector. They anticipate a stronger focus on offensive cyber operations, tailored threat vulnerability protection, and greater coordination between state and local governments. Changes will be coming at the top of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which was created during Trump’s first term and where current director Jen Easterly has announced she will leave once Trump is inaugurated.

Cyber Command 2.0 and the U.S. military

John Cohen, executive director of the Program for Countering Hybrid Threats at the Center for Internet Security, is among those who share the Pentagon’s concerns. “We can no longer afford to operate in stovepipes,” Cohen said, warning that a separate cyber branch could worsen existing silos and further isolate cyber operations from other critical military efforts.

Cohen emphasized that adversaries like China and Russia employ cyber tactics as part of broader, integrated strategies that include economic, physical, and psychological components. To counter such threats, he argued, the U.S. needs a cohesive approach across its military branches. “Confronting that requires our military to adapt to the changing battlespace in a consistent way,” he said.

In 2018, CYBERCOM certified its Cyber Mission Force teams as fully staffed, but concerns have been expressed by the FDD and others that personnel were shifted between teams to meet staffing goals — a move they say masked deeper structural problems. Nakasone has called for a CYBERCOM 2.0, saying in comments early this year “How do we think about training differently? How do we think about personnel differently?” and adding that a major issue has been the approach to military staffing within the command.

Austin Berglas, a former head of the FBI’s cyber program in New York who worked on consolidation efforts inside the Bureau, believes a separate cyber force could enhance U.S. capabilities by centralizing resources and priorities. “When I first took over the [FBI] cyber program … the assets were scattered,” said Berglas, who is now the global head of professional services at supply chain cyber defense company BlueVoyant. Centralization brought focus and efficiency to the FBI’s cyber efforts, he said, and it’s a model he believes would benefit the military’s cyber efforts as well. “Cyber is a different beast,” Berglas said, emphasizing the need for specialized training, advancement, and resource allocation that isn’t diluted by competing military priorities.

Berglas also pointed to the ongoing “cyber arms race” with adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. He warned that without a dedicated force, the U.S. risks falling behind as these nations expand their offensive cyber capabilities and exploit vulnerabilities across critical infrastructure.

Nakasone said in his comments earlier this year that a lot has changed since 2013 when U.S. Cyber Command began building out its Cyber Mission Force to combat issues like counterterrorism and financial cybercrime coming from Iran. “Completely different world in which we live in today,” he said, citing the threats from China and Russia.

Brandon Wales, a former executive director of the CISA, said there is the need to bolster U.S. cyber capabilities, but he cautions against major structural changes during a period of heightened global threats.

“A reorganization of this scale is obviously going to be disruptive and will take time,” said Wales, who is now vice president of cybersecurity strategy at SentinelOne.

He cited China’s preparations for a potential conflict over Taiwan as a reason the U.S. military needs to maintain readiness. Rather than creating a new branch, Wales supports initiatives like Cyber Command 2.0 and its aim to enhance coordination and capabilities within the existing structure. “Large reorganizations should always be the last resort because of how disruptive they are,” he said.

Wales says it’s important to ensure any structural changes do not undermine integration across military branches and recognize that coordination across existing branches is critical to addressing the complex, multidomain threats posed by U.S. adversaries. “You should not always assume that centralization solves all of your problems,” he said. “We need to enhance our capabilities, both defensively and offensively. This isn’t about one solution; it’s about ensuring we can quickly see, stop, disrupt, and prevent threats from hitting our critical infrastructure and systems,” he added.

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