Meta Chief Executive and Founder Mark Zuckerberg, testifying before senators at the hearing on kids' safety on social media, said this is the era where "teens should be allowed to be creators and get wide audiences.".

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) asked about how Meta handles privacy controls specifically for teens. For example, on Instagram, teens younger than 16 — or 18 in some places — have their accounts set by default to private when they join the platform. Yet teenagers can turn on-off those safety measures, enabling them to make their accounts public if they wish.

"Yes, we default teens into a private account so they can have a private and restricted experience," Zuckerberg told the senator. "But some teens want to be creators and want to have content that they share more broadly, and I don't think that's something that should just blanketly be banned."

According to research, there is a dream for the majority of young Americans- it is to become a content creator. A 2019 report by Morning Consult said an astonishing 86% of teens would consider trying to be an influencer, with influencers wielding as much celebrity power as traditional celebrities; for instance, as many teens knew the creator PewDiePie as they were familiar with NBA legend LeBron James. When Lego surveyed 3,000 children last year, the toy firm found that "vlogger" was a more common dream job for kids than "astronaut.".

Among them are teenagers who founded themselves into business and became millionaires at the age, such as that of Charli D'Amelio, self-made millionaire who founded a venture capital fund for her family. The other among the world's highest-earning creators is MrBeast, who began posting videos on YouTube when he was 13.

Of course, there are risks of safety for these young creators and any young person on the internet. But Zuckerberg argues their contributions to culture-and Meta's bottom line-are worth it. For a business like Instagram, keeping talented creators happy on the platform is important so that their viral content continues to drive ad revenue.

There are a lot of teenagers coming up with really cool things and I think with proper adult supervision and parenting and control. I do not think that's a kind of thing you wouldn't want to prevent everyone from being able to do that, Zuckerberg said.

Five tech CEOs testified on children's online safety before Congress on Wednesday: Linda Yaccarino from X, Jason Citron from Discord, Evan Spiegel from Snap, and Shou Chew from TikTok.