European here, I was always confused watching U.S. Senate hearings with social media CEOs having to explain and be almost interrogated and accused of someone’s suicide from supposedly “watching content on the platform”. Why do they need to do that and is it only U.S. thing or does it happen somewhere else?
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Similar to courts, either house of Congress can issue a subpoena to compel people to testify before them. While Congress could issue a subpoena to a non-US resident, almost always, all the person would need to do is not come to the US for it to be pointless. They also cannot really compel foreign diplomats, due to diplomatic immunity.
Generally, such hearings are when Congress is considering laws to regulate business. This makes it in the business’s interest to testify before Congress in order to argue against the regulations, or for specific forms of regulation that the business thinks is in its interest. Due to this, its often merely a formality to issue a subpoena. Actually enforcing a Congressional subpoena is even rarer than the issuing of one.
The specific meetings being held are more to try and placate the public over any real chance of regulation. Given the current state of the US Congress, it is highly improbable they will manage to pass a law regulating social media.
A quick search shows the [UK Parliament](https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/6122/power-to-send-for-papers-or-persons) has similar powers, though such power is apparently fairly rarely used – as with the US, the witnesses generally willingly testify.
I have not found evidence of similar powers for other European countries, but chances are good they do exist, even if only extremely rarely used.
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