[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 116 (Thursday, July 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4788-S4789]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Online Predators

  Madam President, I want to talk about another issue that is related 
to what is happening when it comes to trafficking. This has to do with 
our children.
  In 2017, ICE agents arrested Francisco Javier Soledad on charges of 
producing child pornography using the popular social media app 
Snapchat. He assumed a variety of false identities--first a teenage 
boy, later an adult woman--and coerced at least six underage children 
into sending him sexually explicit pictures and videos. When one victim 
realized this was wrong and attempted to block Soledad's account, 
Soledad turned around and threatened this child--threatened him--with 
posting this video on social media unless--guess what--he sent more 
videos. He did that on Snapchat.

  Imagine this happening to a frightened child. Imagine this happening 
to a child who is close to you. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated 
incident.
  Matthew Murphy, of Massachusetts, was recently charged with the 
sexual exploitation of children after he posed as a teenage girl in 
order to extort nude photos from a middle school-aged boy. Again, it 
was via Snapchat. Federal investigators found evidence that Murphy used 
his fake account to victimize other children in the area.
  Before I continue, let's talk about exactly what is happening here, 
which is horrific. Pedophiles are using popular social media apps to 
trick underage children into creating and distributing homemade 
pornography. If we are going to talk about these things, we have to be 
focused and direct on what is happening here and on the distribution 
methods that are being used.
  By its very nature, Snapchat is a child predator's dream. Its auto-
delete feature allows individuals to ensure their pictures and videos 
will erase themselves after only a few seconds. Its public location-
sharing feature allows anyone, even underage children, to share their 
locations in real time. If left in public mode, the Snap Map will 
reveal their locations and their Snap video feed to complete strangers. 
Even if underage users haven't fallen prey, they are still exposed to 
provocative and age-inappropriate material via the app's Discover 
feature--recommendations generated by Snapchat itself that are free 
from parental control or monitoring.
  If you have guessed that some of these channels specialize in porn 
and suggestive content, you would be right. It is not small business. 
The 2018 revenue for Snapchat was $1.18 billion. How many teen users 
has it attracted? There have been 16.4 million children exposed to what 
I have just laid out. That is why, this week, I sent a letter to Snap 
executives and asked how they plan to fight this predatory behavior and 
if they will give parents more control over the content to which their 
children are being exposed. To their credit, Snap executives have 
already reached out and responded, and it is my hope that they will 
take these questions seriously and do something about this--do 
something about their ratings, do something about the Discover section, 
do something about how it leads children to these pornographic sites.
  As we talk about social media, I think it is also important to note 
that Snapchat is not the only offender.
  Last month, I and my friend and colleague Senator Blumenthal sent a 
letter to YouTube and asked why the

[[Page S4789]]

video service's recommendation mechanism continues to push content that 
involves children being in suggestive or exploitative situations. By 
``suggestive or exploitative,'' I mean content that features partially 
clothed children--children in bathing suits and children dressing and 
undressing themselves.
  YouTube's recommendation system works by promoting similar videos to 
the one the user is already watching, which means that, by design, one 
vile video can lead to another and another and another until the user 
is buried in smut that shouldn't even exist. The comments on these 
videos have turned into a predator's chat room that allows users to 
share time stamps that mark the most explicit moments in a video.
  YouTube did disable comments in videos that involve children, but its 
algorithms continue to push this content via the recommendation 
feature. YouTube needs to stop this. It needs to fix this.
  The point of describing these things is not to throw individual 
companies and their technologies under the bus, but it is crucial that 
we understand that even at home or at school, our children are very 
vulnerable and exposed. Even benign technology that doesn't necessarily 
expose children to pornography can pose a risk.
  In 2015, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a complaint with 
the Federal Trade Commission against Google. It alleged that the tech 
giant's Google for Education program was exploiting minors' personal 
information and potentially exposing it to third parties. Think about 
that. It was exposing their information to third parties.
  The Chromebooks that were issued to students were loaded with Google 
Sync, which allowed for the collection and storage of students' 
browsing history, information, and passwords. Program administrators 
were given complete access to a cloud system, which allowed them to 
alter settings. This exposed students' data--educational data and 
personal data--including physical location data. This was exposed to 
Google's development team and to third-party websites. One wrong click 
would expose students' ``virtual you''--their presence, all of their 
information--online.
  In Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing, I asked the founder and CEO 
of Protect Young Eyes, Christopher McKenna, what steps he would take, 
what he would recommend, to protect our children from online predators. 
His answer was really simple: Give parents the option to control 
content access, and don't hide the tools that are necessary to do this. 
Give them to the parents. Make certain that they have them.
  Now, I am not suggesting a takeover or a ban of these social media 
apps, and I am not suggesting we drop a regulatory anvil on these 
companies. What I am suggesting is that we should not have to ask the 
makers of popular digital services to stop catering to child predators. 
They should choose to recognize that predators lurk in every corner of 
society, and they should change the age ratings on these apps. They 
should issue the warnings to parents. They should choose to make 
parents aware of what a simple click or a tap on a screen might unlock 
right before their children's eyes. They should choose to stop this 
horrific cycle of dehumanization and exploitation before it begins. 
They should choose to work with us to make certain that consumers have 
all of the information they need.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.