Is Josh Hawley Culpable for School Shootings?

By his own logic, it appears so.

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing with CEOs from Meta (formerly Facebook), X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, and Discord. During the course of the hearing, tech executives were blamed for the suicides of youths whose surviving families were in attendance.

The claim is that big tech platforms were used in CSAM related crimes, that the platforms had a responsibility to prevent those crimes, and therefore the executives over those platforms are culpable for the victims’ suicides. By that logic, Senator Josh Hawley is a murderer.

It’s true that big tech platforms are used for criminal (and evil) ends. It’s also true that the executives of these companies have a moral and legal responsibility to minimize criminal use of their products. The insanity begins when these companies are expected to achieve perfect prevention of wrongdoing. That’s an impossible task which law enforcement fails in every possible respect.

It’s worth remembering that public schools have been a platform for bullying, sexual abuse, youth violence, and youth suicide since well before the existence of social media. Are these schools then culpable for the acts perpetrated on their grounds? If so, who would be the executives for these facilities if not members of Congress?

For Hawley et. all to assign blame to Mark Zuckerberg for the death of Gavin Guffey is to simultaneously admit culpability for the suicide of every youth bullied in public schools, every victim of the still rampant sexual abuse in public schools, and every child murdered in a school shooting.

By his own terms, Josh Hawley, along with the rest of Congress, must immediately apologize to and personally compensate countless victims and their families. I’ll wait.