WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today delivered an opening statement during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled “Children’s Safety in the Digital Era: Strengthening Protections and Addressing Legal Gaps.” Reports of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) have exploded in recent years. Between March 2009 and February 2022, the number of victims identified in CSAM rose tenfold from 2,172 victims to more than 21,413 victims. Between 2012 and 2022, the volume of reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline concerning child sexual exploitation increased from 415,650 reports to more than 32 million reports.
Key Durbin Quotes:
“Almost exactly two years ago, this Committee held a similar hearing where we heard from six witnesses about the harms social media does to our kids and grandkids—a mom whose son took his own life after he was bullied online; a young woman whose mental and physical health suffered as she chased the unattainable lifestyle depicted on Instagram and other apps; experts who told us how Big Tech designs their platforms to be addictive, keeping users online for longer and longer so they can be fed more targeted ads; and individuals combatting the tidal wave of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, flowing across the internet.”
“[Two years ago], the Committee reported five bills that would help protect kids online. This included my STOP CSAM Act and I want to thank Senator Hawley for joining me in that effort, along with bipartisan bills from Senators Graham, Blumenthal, Klobuchar, Cornyn, Blackburn, and Ossoff. These bills were reported out of this Committee unanimously. [The Committee contains] the most conservative Republicans to the most Progressive Democrats. It’s almost unheard of to pass a bill unanimously, yet we did it. Five times.”
“Now let’s be clear, none of these bills are the silver bullet that would make the internet completely safe for our kids. But they would be significant steps toward finally holding tech companies accountable for the harms they’ve caused, the damages they’ve caused, the deaths that they’ve caused. And that’s why the tech companies opposed them as strongly as they did.”
“So just over a year ago, I called in the CEOs of five major tech platforms—some under subpoena—to demand answers under oath. And that hearing produced results. Several companies implemented child safety improvements just days before their CEOs came to testify. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, under pressure from Senator Hawley, gave a long overdue apology to the parents his platform has hurt. But apologies and too-little-too-late reforms are simply not enough. The dozens of parents and survivors in that room and the thousands more impacted in every community across our country demand more. And I, for one, plan to follow through.”
“I’m under no illusion that it will be easy to pass legislation to protect kids online and finally make the tech industry legally accountable for the damage they cause, but they should face the same liability [that] every other industry in America [faces]. Just last year, Big Tech and its allies in the House killed a bill—the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act—that would have imposed a basic duty of care on tech platforms. That bill passed the Senate 91 to 3. Yet it didn’t get a vote in the House.”
“The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children receives 100,000 reports to its CyberTipline every single day. That’s not just a statistic. Each of those reports involves a victim. It could be anything from images of a toddler being raped to a teenager being coerced, extorted, groomed, and encouraged to commit suicide. One hundred thousand reports …every single day. I hope everyone keeps that in mind as we hold this hearing. And I hope it drives them to demand that Congress finally do something.”
Video of Durbin’s opening statement is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s opening statement is available here.
Footage of Durbin’s opening statement is available here for TV Stations.
During his time as Chair, Durbin and the Committee extensively examined the plague of online child sexual exploitation through hearings, legislation, and oversight efforts. On January 31, 2024, the Committee held a hearing featuring testimony from the CEOs of social media companies Discord, Meta, Snap, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter). This hearing highlighted the ongoing risk to children and the immediate need for Congress to act on the bipartisan bills reported by the Committee. Last Congress, the Committee also reported out Durbin’s STOP CSAM Act, which provides a comprehensive response to online child sexual exploitation by supporting victims and increasing accountability and transparency for online platforms. During today’s opening statement, Durbin announced he plans to re-introduce the STOP CSAM Act again this Congress.
This week, Durbin will join U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to introduce a bill that would sunset Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in two years. Section 230—and the legal immunity it provides to Big Tech—has been on the books since 1996—long before social media became a part of our daily lives. To the extent this protection was ever needed, its usefulness has long since passed.
In addition to the STOP CSAM Act, since February 2023 and under then-Chair Durbin’s leadership, the Committee unanimously reported multiple bipartisan bills to help stop the exploitation of kids online, including:
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