[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 92 (Tuesday, May 30, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1782-S1783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Online Safety

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, the dangers children encounter when 
they go online have increased exponentially since social media 
platforms took over our lives. Just a few years ago, cyber bullying 
dominated our conversations about kids and the virtual world. Now those 
cyber bullies are joined by drug dealers, sex traffickers, pedophiles, 
and influencers who glorify mental illness, eating disorders, and self-
harm.
  Last week, the Biden administration decided to pay some attention to 
this pressing issue. While I am glad to see the White House get behind 
us on this issue, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that they are 
far behind.
  Over the past 2\1/2\ years, the Senate has dedicated an incredible 
amount of time and energy to investigating the harm these threats have 
inflicted on young people. When Senator Blumenthal and I led the 
Commerce Committee's Consumer Protection Subcommittee, we hosted five 
separate hearings investigating the inherent dangers children encounter 
online. The Judiciary Committee hosted a sixth this past February. 
During those hearings, we produced more than 500 pages of testimony. 
This is just the testimony from witnesses who have come before us in 
those hearings.
  In addition to this testimony, we have collected hundreds more pages 
of evidence illustrating the devastating impact Big Tech has had on the 
lives of children and teens. We also found proof that these online 
companies knew they had lost control of their platforms, and still, 
even knowing it, still they made the affirmative choice to not protect 
their users. They did this knowing children were at risk.
  On top of that are the additional hours we spent talking to parents 
who tried to protect their children. We also independently confirmed 
just how easy it is for predators to target young people with dangerous 
content.
  I would implore my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to confront 
what is in these pages of testimony. Familiarize yourself with what we 
heard during these hearings and in conversations--heartbreaking 
conversations--with families and stakeholders. As you do, remember that 
the examples we discussed in committee weren't just available for 
children to access; in many cases, there was no hiding from it, which 
seems unbelievable until you actually speak to young people about how 
pervasive this harmful content and many times illegal content is. This 
is why Senator Blumenthal and I spent time talking to kids and teens 
about their firsthand experiences with dangerous content.

  The Presiding Officer knows this issue well. He has worked on kids' 
online privacy. He did that when he was in the House, and he has done 
it in the Senate. So he knows the importance of the steps we have taken 
not to limit the conversation just to grownups but to talk to teens and 
children, and that is what we have done. No one has a better 
understanding of what is happening to teens online than teenagers.
  So we invited them into the room and asked them: What can we do to be 
helpful?
  What they told us that they needed was something that is more 
proactive and more enforceable than what the Biden administration has 
chosen to offer.
  According to the White House's announcement, HHS and the Commerce 
Department will lead an interagency Task Force on Kids Online Health 
and Safety. Their job will be to identify harms to minors from online 
platforms and then develop voluntary guidance, policy recommendations, 
and a toolkit for industry.
  That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? We have been doing that 
here in the Senate for more than 2 years. Yet the White House wants to 
start from scratch. What is the point in that? We know what the harms 
are. The harms have been articulated.
  We also know that voluntary guidance will do nothing to make online 
platforms safer. We tried that kinder, gentler method, and it failed. 
It does not work. Social media platforms have proven to us that they 
are incapable of self-regulation. Why is that? Because, when our 
children are online, our children are the product. They are data mining 
our children. They are selling that data to the highest bidder.
  The second item I want to highlight is a good development but one 
that will complement rather than replace work we have already done here 
in the Senate.
  According to the White House's announcement, DHS and the Justice 
Department will work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
Children to create combined image repositories to help identify victims 
of online trafficking and sexual abuse. This is promising because it 
puts law enforcement on the frontlines. That is an important 
distinction, but this effort needs our support, which means staying the 
course on existing legislation to bolster both law enforcement and 
NCMEC's legal authorities.
  On that front, this week, the Judiciary Committee will consider the 
REPORT Act. It is a piece of bipartisan legislation I sponsored with 
Senator Ossoff that will require online companies and social media 
platforms to report known instances of child sex trafficking or 
enticement on their platforms. It will also substantially increase the 
fines imposed for failure to report this abuse to NCMEC.
  Importantly, the REPORT Act also includes another one of my bills, 
the END Child Exploitation Act, which requires online platforms to 
preserve reports to NCMEC's cyber tip line for a period of 1 year. By 
extending this retention period, we can ensure that law enforcement has 
enough time to access evidence and to prosecute these crimes.
  This bill will also make it easier for NCMEC to transfer these cyber 
tip line reports to law enforcement, which will, in turn, help law 
enforcement prosecute cases faster and put more offenders behind bars--
no more excuses.
  You know, it is so interesting. I have talked to Tennesseans, and 
they thought this would already be the law--that these social media 
platforms would have to report these sex traffickers, these pedophiles, 
these drug dealers, these child sexual abuse images, and things that 
were online. They are surprised that they don't and that they don't 
take them down. So no more executives coming up here to the Hill to 
give us excuses for why they are not able to do this and complaining 
about how hard it is to tackle criminal perversion on their platforms--
they need to get busy with this.
  The policies laid out in the REPORT Act are critical to helping 
Silicon Valley and law enforcement stop predators. As I said, they 
ought to be the first ones to stand up and say: We have got some bad 
actors over here. We are going to take them down.
  There should be bipartisan agreement on this. Everybody should say: 
Let's do this, and let's do it now.
  I know I can't be the only person in this Chamber who is wondering 
why these big tech companies haven't kept their own promises to make 
the online world safer for kids and for teens.
  The White House's plan for voluntary guidelines and toolkits gives 
these companies far too much credit. As I said, they have proven to us 
they are incapable of self-governance.
  Why are they incapable? Because they need the eyeballs of our kids on 
their sites for longer stretches of time. That means the data is 
richer. That means they sell that data. They are putting profit before 
the safety of our children. Go talk to these parents who have lost 
their kids. Go listen to these teens who are recovering from social 
media addiction.
  This is why, earlier this year, Senator Blumenthal and I reintroduced 
the Kids Online Safety Act. It has 34 bipartisan cosponsors and the 
endorsement of more than 200 bipartisan organizations.
  First, it would force platforms to give families the ability to 
protect minors' information, disable addictive product features, and 
opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Next, it would give parents the 
safeguards needed to protect their children's online experiences as 
well as to provide a

[[Page S1783]]

dedicated channel to report harmful behavior. Those are things that 
currently do not exist.
  Most parents are shocked when they go onto these platforms, and when 
they are trying to report cyber bullying, they don't hear a word back 
from the platform or, maybe months later, they get an email that says: 
This content does not violate our community standards.
  How disgusting.
  Many of these parents know what is going on, and they are trying to 
help. They know what their kids are seeing, and they know predatory 
content. Content that promotes self-harm, suicide, eating disorders to 
minors will now, indeed, be a problem for these platforms to deal with 
when we pass the Kids Online Safety Act.
  Parents are tired of the denial, the deflection, and the disrespect 
that is shown to them and their children by these social media 
platforms. Our kids deserve better than what these platforms and big 
tech companies are dishing out to them. They deserve protection on 
these sites.
  As the Presiding Officer well knows, there are things that are 
illegal in the physical space but that are allowed in the virtual space 
on these platforms, and these platforms do nothing--nothing--to take 
this down.
  In addition to making it difficult for these social media platforms 
to skirt the provisions of KOSA, we are requiring in that legislation a 
requirement for an annual risk assessment and access to data sets we 
can use to access and assess safety threats to underage users. It is 
time to make certain that safety is there, that it is safety by 
default, safety by design for our children.
  Both the REPORT Act and the Kids Online Safety Act have earned the 
enthusiastic support of bipartisan policymakers, advocates, medical 
professionals, tech experts, and families from across the country. It 
is time we pass this legislation.
  I yield the floor.