(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Legislators, parents and advocates are pushing for more protections for children online and to make tech companies more accountable.
“Mr. Zuckerberg, you have blood on your hands,” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) said during a contentious hearing last week with tech leaders on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held that hearing. On Friday, he visited the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center to push for his bill — one of several currently in Congress that aim to address online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — the Stop CSAM Act.
Jeanine Otty, a survivor of child sexual abuse, was among those at the center.
“Something I think about all the time is: If my child were here and knew what I was allowing to happen, or if my child saw that … I was allowing abuse to continue, it’s such a betrayal,” Otty said.
She added that while most people would act to stop child sexual abuse in person, but that hasn’t been the case in the digital world.
“And it makes it even more long lasting,” Otty said. “I want to see action. I want to see them take action to protect children. That’s the responsibility of all adults: to protect children.”
Wednesday’s hearing, which included the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies, began with recorded testimony from kids and parents who said they or their children were exploited on social media. Throughout the hourslong event, parents who lost children to suicide silently held up pictures of their dead kids.
"They’re responsible for many of the dangers our children face online,” said Durbin in his opening remarks. “Their design choices, their failures to adequately invest in trust and safety, their constant pursuit of engagement and profit over basic safety have all put our kids and grandkids at risk.”
Durbin’s Stop CSAM Act would make it easier for victims of child exploitation to sue tech companies. The hope is that exposing tech companies to lawsuits would make them take a more proactive approach to finding and removing CSAM from their platforms.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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