The chief executives of the nation's top social media companies were grilled on Wednesday on Capitol Hill over child safety, with the tech leaders seeking to defend their companies from accusations that they've failed to protect kids from exploitation and abuse.

U.S. senators on Wednesday grilled leaders of the biggest social media companies and said Congress must quickly pass legislation, as one lawmaker accused the companies of having "blood on their hands" for failing to protect children from escalating threats of sexual predation on their platforms.

The hearing marks the latest effort by lawmakers to address the concerns of parents and mental health experts that social media companies put profits over guardrails that would ensure their platforms do not harm children.

If Senate Democrats plan to subpoena conservative judicial activists as part of a Supreme Court ethics investigation, Republicans say they must go after liberal advocates the same way.

Oklahoma district judge nominee Sara Hill apparently lied about her previous pledge to ignore state abortion laws on Cherokee Nation land following the historic Dobbs v. Jackson ruling. Hill, a Cherokee herself, was previously attorney general of the Cherokee Nation. 

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked Hill whether she had said that she “had no intent to enforce the law post-Dobbs.” Hill responded by claiming she “never said that.” However, video footage from her time as attorney general demonstrates otherwise.

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it has adopted an ethics code for the first time, a step that comes in response to its justices ― particularly conservative Justice Clarence Thomas ― facing scrutiny for undisclosed gifts from wealthy political donors.

But Democratic senators and progressive court reform groups are already saying it does next to nothing because there is no way to enforce it.

The Supreme Court on Monday adopted an ethics code for justices in light of recent scrutiny over undisclosed gifts to two current justices.

A statement from the court attached to the 14-page Code of Conduct states that “for the most part these rules and principles are not new.”

It adds that the absence of a code “has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.”

The Supreme Court on Monday issued a new "Code of Conduct" following months of heightened scrutiny from Senate Judiciary Democrats pushing for new ethics laws for the high court. 

"The undersigned Justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court," the announcement Monday read. 

On the same day whistleblower Frances Haugen was testifying before Congress about the harms of Facebook and Instagram to children in the fall of 2021, a former engineering director at the social media giant who had rejoined the company as a consultant sent an alarming email to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the same topic.

Arturo Béjar, known for his expertise on curbing online harassment, recounted to Zuckerberg his own daughter’s troubling experiences with Instagram. But he said his concerns and warnings went unheeded. And on Tuesday, it was Béjar’s turn to testify to Congress.

A former Meta (META.O) employee is testifying before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday, alleging that the Facebook and Instagram parent company was aware of harassment and other harms facing teens on its platforms but failed to address them.

The employee, Arturo Bejar, worked on well-being for Instagram from 2019 to 2021 and earlier was a director of engineering for Facebook's Protect and Care team from 2009 to 2015, he said.