San Francisco, Nov 30 (IANS): The CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap and Discord will testify before the US Senate on January 31, 2024 during a hearing about online child sexual exploitation.

US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that hearing over the tech giant's "failure to protect" kids online.

"We've known from the beginning that our efforts to protect children online would be met with hesitation from Big Tech," the senators said in a joint statement.

"They finally are being forced to acknowledge their failures when it comes to protecting kids. Now that all five companies are cooperating, we look forward to hearing from their CEOs. Parents and kids demand action," they added.

The CEOs of X, Discord, and Snap will testify pursuant to subpoenas issued by the Committee, following repeated refusals over weeks of negotiations by the three Big Tech leaders to testify.

The CEOs of Meta and TikTok voluntarily agreed to testify at the hearing. "When we held our first hearing on protecting children online with experts and advocates earlier this year, Big Tech griped about not getting an invitation. We promised them that their time would come. But when they were offered their chance to testify, some companies outright refused to make their CEOs available," the senators noted.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from the following five CEOs: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta; Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X; Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok; Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap and Jason Citron, CEO of Discord.