U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Online
Child Sexual Exploitation highlighted the need for action to protect children
from predators and the committee and public’s frustration at the lack of
response from social media companies. Despite assurances from 5 CEOs of major
social media companies that they were doing all that they could to protect children
from predatory behavior, committee members pressed them for more action and to
support a variety of legislative bills that have been proposed for passage in
Congress.
As reported in the Seattle Times, Senate Majority Whip,
and chairman of the Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin, Democrat, Illinois, pointed
out in his opening remarks that,
“They’re responsible for many of the dangers our
children face online. 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.”
The comments of the chairman and committee members
point to their frustration that the social media companies such as Meta
(Facebook, Instagram), TikTok, Twitter (also known as X), Discord, and SNAP
have not met the challenge to keep children safe or to give a good faith effort
to work with Congress to draft legislation that would take measures to help
protect children. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican, South Carolina, and the
Republican ranking member on the committee, even said that the social media
companies have “blood on their hands.”
The hearing pointed to the need for social media
companies to devote more resources to keeping their member’s safety and for
legislation that makes sure social media is adhering to a set of rules that
truly ensure the safety of social media users.
Multiple committee members pressed the CEO’s on
whether they would give their support to several proposed pieces of legislation
that have been introduced to Congress with few takers. Legislation mentioned
during the hearing included,
·
Stop CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse
Material) Act. The Stop CSAM Act includes mandatory
child abuse reporting, expansion of protections for child victims and witnesses
in federal court, facilitates restitution for victims of child exploitation,
human trafficking, sexual assault, and crimes of violence, empowers victims by
making it easier to ask tech companies to remove child sexual abuse material
from their platforms.
·
Earn It Act.
Creates targeted exceptions to Section 230* of the Communications Decency Act
of 1996 to remove blanket immunity from civil and criminal liability under
child sexual abuse material laws and establishes a National Commission on
Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention.
·
Shield Act.
This New York law, passed in 2019, imposes stronger obligations on businesses
that handle personal and private information to mitigate threats that
contribute to identity theft, such as data breaches and data leaks.
·
Cooper Davis Act.
Requires social media companies and other communication service providers to
report to the DEA when they have actual knowledge that illicit drugs are being
distributed on their platforms or when someone who is not a practitioner or
online pharmacy is distributing prescription pain medications and stimulants.
·
Protect Act.
Would raise the mandatory minimum for possession of child pornography to the
same level as for its receipt (that is five years imprisonment).
·
Kids Online Safety Act.
Requires covered platforms (including social media sites) to design and operate
their products or services that are used by minors to prevent and mitigate
certain harms such as sexual exploitation and online bullying. Platforms must
provide minors with certain safeguards such as settings that restrict access to
minors’ personal data and provide parents or guardians with tools to supervise the
minors’ use of a platform, such as control of privacy and account settings.
*Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996
states:
“No provider or user of an interactive computer
service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
provided by another information content provider.”
AARP recently highlighted the issue of account
takeovers in their podcast The Perfect Scam. While their focus was beyond children’s
exploitation on social media, it pointed to a similar source of the problem-
lack of action on the part of social media. The two-part episodes, “’National
Geographic’ Photographer Paul Nicklen Warns About Social Media Imposters,” describe
the challenges that victims of account takeovers have on social media such as
Facebook, with scammers using their accounts to promote all sorts of scams
include romance scams, importer scams, and celebrity scams.
Victims include celebrities and “common people” who
experience problems in regaining control of their accounts. They also can have
problems, whether they can regain control or not, with their reputations and
with letting their friends know that they are not perpetuating the scams being
used in their names. For example, Paul Nicklen, the National Geographic photographer,
constantly takes down fake sites and accounts that pretend to be him and constantly
reminds is followers that he is not asking for money or sending them individual
emails that they are his favorite follower.
Kevin Long is the owner of Social Imposter (https://www.socialimpostor.com/)
which helps high end people remove fake accounts. He relates several of his
efforts in trying to convince social media companies to improve their cybersecurity
measures in favor of their users, with no success.
Social media companies, such as Facebook, provide slow
or no response to complaints, do not have clear or effective procedures that
help account holders to regain their accounts, and do not provide a means to
talk to an actual person in a cybersecurity or fraud department.
Comment: Fighting and preventing crime takes all of
us. Not only in physical crimes, but also in cybercrime. Over recent years many
elements of our society have been forming to fight one form or another of
cybercrime including government, non-profit and profit-making organizations,
and we the public. There is much work to be done to improve what we do now. But
we need all elements of our society to work on this problem; government, the
public, non-profits, and business. Hopefully together.
Consensus may be growing that social media businesses need
to step up to do more to protect their users from cybercrime. That consensus
certainly resides in the Senate Judiciary Committee and at AARP. Failing action
from social media, Congress needs to coalesce together to form an effective
strategy, and if necessary, require social media companies to join the team.
The Seattle Times:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/meta-tiktok-and-other-social-media-ceos-to-testify-before-senate-committee-on-child-exploitation/
CSPAN:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?532641-101/short-take-recap-social-media-executives-testimony-child-sexual-exploitation
https://www.c-span.org/video/?532641-1/social-media-company-ceos-testify-online-child-sexual-exploitation-part-1
AARP:
https://www.aarp.org/podcasts/the-perfect-scam/info-2023/paul-nicklen-part-1.html
https://www.aarp.org/podcasts/the-perfect-scam/info-2023/paul-nicklen-part-2.html
Ask Leo:
https://askleo.com/what-to-do-when-your-account-is-hacked/
Security.org:
https://www.security.org/digital-safety/account-takeover-annual-report/
https://www.security.org/digital-safety/account-takeover-prevention/
