Testimony

Questions for the Record: Jason Sattizahn's Follow-Up Responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee

Sep 2025 🇺🇸 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law

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Following the September 2025 "Hidden Harms" hearing, Jason Sattizahn submitted written answers to follow-up questions from Senators Blackburn and Coons. In them, he disputed Meta's public rebuttal of the whistleblowers' disclosure, described a company review process in which legal staff could require researchers to narrow survey questions or withhold findings about harm to VR users, and said internal documents he had shared with Congress showed that a large share of users in some VR social spaces were under the platform's stated minimum age. He also described two internal decisions to lower the minimum age for Meta's VR apps, which he said were discussed internally as ways to grow the user base. Sattizahn proposed specific transparency and independent-research measures Congress could require of Meta. TechKids Foundation cites this as testimony-based evidence of policy gaps around age verification in VR products, not as an independently audited count of affected children.

80–90% under age 10 in some VR rooms

Responding to a senator's question, Sattizahn said internal documents he had shared with Congress showed that in some virtual social spaces, 80 to 90 percent of users were under the age Meta markets its headsets for (10+).

CITATION

Sattizahn, J. Questions for the Record, U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, 'Hidden Harms' hearing follow-up, submitted Sept. 2025.

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