[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 199 (Monday, December 4, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5706-S5707]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Kids Online Safety Act

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, the Wall Street Journal had such an 
interesting report in last week, and I wanted to bring this to 
everyone's attention. As you know, I have talked so much about the 
importance of protecting our children from what is happening online.
  The Journal had worked with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, 
and they were reporting on the tests that they jointly had conducted on 
Instagram. What they were trying to do was to see what type of content 
that Instagram's algorithms were recommending to pedophiles who were 
interested in sexual content.
  Now, think about this, because in the physical world, you have got 
laws against pedophiles and the content that they are making and 
creating and distributing. But in the virtual space, our children do 
not have that protection. That is the premise that the Canadian Centre 
for Child Protection was working from, and this is what the Wall Street 
Journal was reporting on.
  The results were absolutely disgusting. When you go in and you look 
at what they saw, you realize that Instagram actually delivers short 
videos showing content of children and adults in sexual situations. 
See, it is serving it up for these pedophiles. It is delivering it. All 
they have to do--a click of the mouse, and it is right there on their 
screen.
  Here is an example feed that the test produced. Bear in mind, their 
researchers are going in. They are looking at this, and this is some of 
the content that was found in the researchers' feed: an adult uncrosses 
her legs to reveal her underwear; sprinter at a track meet runs over a 
small boy who steps on the track; advertisements promoting trips to 
Disneyland; child in a bathing suit records herself posing in a mirror; 
adult-content creator gives a ``come hither'' motion; girl dancing in a 
car while a song with sexual lyrics plays. That is a snippet of what 
one researcher had come up in their platform, in their feed.
  The tests also found that Instagram was providing videos and pictures 
of missing and exploited children as well as videos confirmed to be 
child sexual abuse material. We call that CSAM. At the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, we have done some good work in working to prohibit CSAM and 
to protect our children. All of this legislation should come to the 
floor. It should be immediately passed.
  Now, of what I have just read to you of what the researcher found, 
there is even more. The report showed that Instagram was well-aware 
that its algorithms could produce this stream of content. Bear in mind, 
this is illegal content. This is child sexual abuse content.
  Former Meta employees--and, of course, we know Meta owns Facebook and 
Instagram. Former Meta employees told the Journal that Meta knew its 
algorithms could specifically aggregate content sexualizing children. 
And this ties in with so much of what Senator Blumenthal and I have 
found as we led hearings looking into what was happening in these 
online platforms and how it was affecting our children. These platforms 
know what is happening. They are fully aware. They know that these 
algorithms will aggregate that content and then they will serve it up 
to you--fully aware of it.
  But you know why they don't change it? They don't change it because 
they put profits over the protection of our children. They make a 
conscious choice to keep it the way it is.
  Now, before releasing Reels, that app, Meta's safety staff warned the 
product would chain together videos of children and inappropriate 
content. The safety team actually provided recommendations that Meta 
should either increase those content detection capabilities or prevent 
the recommendation of any content containing--minors being a part of 
this content. They gave them choices and options and said: Here is a 
way that you can go about protecting children before you put Reels and 
that platform out there.
  Now, those are two suggestions that were made to Meta by their own 
staff. This is how you can protect children: Increase your detection 
capabilities or prevent the recommendation.
  Now, it is the algorithms that feed up these recommendations: If you 
like this, you are going to like this. You loved this. Just wait; you 
are going to love this.
  Now, Meta said no to each of those. There again, why is it that they 
said no? Well, it is what we see repeatedly: They are putting profits 
ahead of protecting our children.
  So think about this. How do these platforms--how does Meta get their 
net worth? Well, all of this is based on the number of eyeballs they 
capture, the length of time that they can keep people on their site. So 
they ignore the suggestions on how to make that site safer for our 
children.
  Meta employees actually said that preventing the system from pushing 
this content to users who are interested in it--well, what users do you 
think are interested in child sexual abuse content? It is pedophiles. 
It is criminals. So here you go. These employees said that preventing 
the system from pushing this content to users interested in it 
``requires significant changes to the recommendation algorithms that 
also drive engagement for normal users.''
  I cannot believe that they are so hardened, that they are so 
careless, that they would think that: If somebody wants this, serve it 
up. It may have a child who is sexually exploited or even a child who 
is missing in that video, but--you know what--serve it up. They think 
the dollar is worth it.
  The Journal also reported on Meta documents. Now, this is not just 
hearsay. It is not anecdotal. These are actual corporate documents. 
Now, these documents showed that ``the company's safety staffers are 
broadly barred from making changes to the platform that might reduce 
daily active users by any measurable amount.''
  Now, in other words, they have the tools; they have the technology. 
They could put in place things that would protect children, but the 
company will not let the employees take the action that would protect 
children because it might mean that a user is not on the site for as 
long a period of time. And as I said, they get their valuation from the 
number of eyeballs they capture and the amount of time they spend on 
the site.
  This is absolutely unbelievable, but it is the way Meta is choosing 
to operate. And Meta is not alone. You have got others of these social 
media platforms that are right in there with them. They keep dishing up 
this harmful and destructive content.
  Why do we have a mental health crisis for our children in this 
country? Could this possibly be a part of the problem? Why is it that 
one in three American teenage girls has contemplated suicide? Could 
this possibly be a part of the problem? Why is it that we are finding 
out that well over a third of all kids meet a drug dealer online? Why 
is it that we are learning that children that meet and are groomed by a 
sex trafficker are first meeting them online?
  The lack of care and concern for our Nation's children: stunning. And 
this is Big Tech. They would rather make a buck than protect a child. 
Don't try to take away their ability to keep people locked in on that 
screen. The longer they can keep them, the happier they are.
  Well, all of this is one of the reasons that, for the last several 
years, Senator Blumenthal and I have worked on the Kids Online Safety 
Act, and we have

[[Page S5707]]

continued this work because it is obvious that these platforms cannot 
be trusted to do even the bare minimum to protect our Nation's 
children. We are saying, a bare minimum.

  Now, the Kids Online Safety Act has the support of 49 Senators in 
this Chamber, and I thank everyone who is a part of this. We also, 
Madam President, have 230 advocacy organizations in this country that 
are in support of the Kids Online Safety Act. And interestingly enough, 
with the polling we have seen lately, 86 percent of the American people 
support the Kids Online Safety Act.
  Here is what it would do: First, it would force platforms to give 
families the ability to protect minors' information, disable addictive 
product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. These are 
all things that parents and kids want to be able to do because, maybe, 
there is stuff that they are seeing that they really don't want to see.
  Next, it would give parents the safeguards that are needed to protect 
their kids' online experience as well as a dedicated channel to report 
harmful behavior. We have met with parents who talk about reporting 
cyber bullying, reporting videos that are different challenges online. 
Some of these parents, their children have been injured. Some of them 
have lost their lives. Some of them committed suicide. They want a 
dedicated channel to report harmful behavior, and the legislation 
requires these platforms to respond to parents and kids.
  Predatory content and content that promotes self-harm, suicide, and 
eating disorders to minors will now, indeed, be a problem for these 
platforms to deal with. No longer would they be able to deny and 
deflect knowing this content is on their site.
  We also included requirements for annual risk assessments and 
independent research reports we can use to assess safety threats to 
underage users.
  Madam President, it is time for the Senate to finally act on the 
harms online platforms are posing to our little ones. Our Kids Online 
Safety Act, the REPORT Act--we have got great bills that would rein in 
some of this reckless behavior.
  And as I have described, platforms like Meta know. They are fully 
aware of the harms this is causing. We have had whistleblowers talk to 
us about the harms and that they know these harms exist.
  So with 49 Members of this Chamber supporting the legislation, it is 
time that we move forward with it, and we should get this done before 
the end of the year.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Butler). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.