Archives: News

Sen. Marsha Blackburn confronted Zuckerberg on internal Meta documents suggesting that the company estimates the lifetime value of a teen user at $270. “How could you possibly even have that thought? It is astounding to me,” Blackburn said, before recognizing a group of youth advocates in the audience and inviting them to stand.

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee also went after Zuckerberg about an internal Meta document that placed a lifetime value to the company of a young user at $270. “How could you possibly even have that thought? It is astounding to me,” Blackburn said. She then invited members of the gallery to stand who wore T-shirts that read “I am worth more than $270.”

In her line of questioning, Senator Marsha Blackburn cited an internal email at Meta revealed as part of a lawsuit from US attorneys general that stated product teams that referred to younger users in terms of their lifetime value of being “roughly $270 per teenager”. She acknowledge teenagers in the crowd for the hearing wearing shirts that read “I’m worth more than $270,” which elicited applause from the crowd.

Youth activists from across the country attended Wednesday’s hearing, donning T-shirts reading, “I’m worth more than $270.” The shirt is a reference to a lawsuit that 41 state attorneys general brought against Meta, claiming its products are addictive for teens. An unredacted version of that lawsuit includes an internal company email that said, “The lifetime value of a 13 y/o teen is roughly $270.”

Young advocates stood in the back of the hearing room with shirts that read “I’m worth more than $270” — part of the overall outsized crowd presence at this event. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) pointed to this group as she referenced the new set of internal Meta emails she and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) released. In the internal documents, Blackburn said, Meta executives described the lifetime value of teens on their services being roughy $270 each.

Profits should not be the primary concern when companies are faced with safety and privacy decisions, said Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of Design It For Us, a youth-led coalition advocating for safer social media. “These companies have had opportunities to do this before they failed to do that. So independent regulation needs to step in.”

Accountable Tech and Design it for Us will hold a rally outside the Capitol following the hearing. Design it for Us is more focused on the harms it says are posed by Meta, Snap and TikTok. But it added in a statement, “That certainly doesn’t excuse Discord and X.”

“We understand that they are companies and they have to make profit. But when you’re faced with really important safety and privacy decisions, the revenue in the bottom line should not be the first factor that these companies are considering,” said Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of Design It For Us, a youth-led coalition advocating for safer social media. “These companies have had opportunities to do this before they failed to do that. So independent regulation needs to step in.”

“We’ve been on this merry-go-round before, where we put forward and present new pieces of legislation, where we work with the lawmakers to make sure that it’s in the best possible place it can be, and then the lobbyists come in and try and kill it,” said Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of youth online safety organization Design It For Us.

Qureshi is one of several young people trying to tackle the problem head on. He’s the cochair of Design It For Us, a coalition of organizations advocating for laws to make the internet and social media safer. The group has met with lawmakers including Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA).