OPINION:
While Feb. 8, 2022, is known globally as “Safer Internet Day,” every day, leaders, advocates, educators and parents should be focused on making the internet safer for children and families.
Online sexual exploitation has irreparable consequences for the most vulnerable in our communities, namely our children. Yet, for decades, children have had unprotected access to the digital world via a myriad of internet-enabled devices. In 2021, The New York Times reported that children’s screen time had doubled by May 2020, as compared with the same period in the year prior.
Unfortunately, no child is immune from online sexual exploitation. The digital world is the new playground for children and predators. After all, predators prey where children play. Vulnerable children are open prey for savvy predators, traffickers and pornographers with a sexual appetite for children.
Predators can hide behind electronic devices as they anonymously groom unsuspecting children, manipulating them into a sexual encounter, blackmailing them into silence and selling images and videos of their abuse, all facilitated by the multi-billion-dollar tech industry. Sadly, millions of children and families have suffered due to greed for profit by interactive technology companies. Instead of protecting children, they knowingly allowed them to be abused and exploited.
It is estimated that online sexual exploitation and abuse of children increased by a staggering 422% over the past 15 years. In 2019, The New York Times ran the article: “The Internet Is Overrun With Images of Child Sexual Abuse. What Went Wrong?” Its reporting exposed the widespread neglect and disregard for child safety shown by large tech companies, even when obvious examples of child sexual abuse material were brought to their attention.
To make matters worse, reports of online sexual exploitation snowballed during COVID-19, exacerbated by school closures and virtual learning for countless millions of children worldwide. Given the ease of online sexual exploitation, offenders grew bolder as children spent more time online, creating greater challenges for law enforcement, parents, and caregivers. In 2021, NCMEC received more than 29.3 million CyberTipline reports containing over 84.9 million images and videos of suspected child sexual exploitation, some as young as infants and toddlers.
There needs to be a dramatic paradigm shift regarding Big Tech’s response to child online sexual exploitation for the internet to be safer for children. They must become a more vital part of the solution, rather than a big part of the problem. Historically, voluntary efforts by the tech industry have been widely ineffective. And yet, many multibillion-dollar tech companies fight vehemently against regulation and have been particularly opposed to Congress amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996.
This month, co-sponsors Sens. Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Democrat Sylvia Garcia and Republican Ann Wagner introduced the bipartisan EARN IT Act of 2022 (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act) in both the Senate and the House respectfully.
If enacted, EARN IT (S.3538) will remove blanket immunity for social media and technology companies that knowingly facilitate the distribution of CSAM on their platforms. I supported Congress’ original intent of CDA’s Section 230, which was to provide a “Good Samaritan” defense to technology companies who made good faith efforts to protect minor-aged children from online pornography. However, profit-hungry interactive technology companies began to misuse and abuse this well-intentioned legal protection, which became a loophole to avoid accountability and responsibility. This has led to the complicit facilitation by many companies in the distribution, sharing, trading or posting of child sexual abuse materials on their platforms.
The 2019 passage of SESTA/FOSTA was the first successful law to chip away at CDA Section 230, strengthening legal recourse for victims and holding internet platforms liable for knowingly facilitating the sex trafficking of children and women. The EARN IT Act is the next strategic legal remedy to dismantle the stronghold of the unearned immunity, unintentionally provided by Section 230, and hold the multi-billion-dollar child pornography, human trafficking and child exploitation industry accountable, including Big Tech companies that facilitate this despicable behavior.
EARN IT also updates existing federal statutes to use the term child sexual abuse materials instead of child pornography. The term child pornography fails to describe the true nature of the images and undermines the seriousness of the abuse. Under EARN IT, the countless innocent victims who have been used and re-abused by the viral spread of images and videos of their sexual abuse, as well as State Attorneys General, will be able to seek legal recourse against online platforms that engage in the distribution and circulation of child sexual abuse materials online.
A critical component of EARN IT is the establishment of a much-needed commission which will be composed of survivors, technology representatives, subject matter experts and law enforcement, joined by representatives from various governmental agencies. The commission will create recommendations and best practices for tech companies to respond to the global epidemic of online sexual exploitation of children.
Bottom line, Big Tech will finally be held responsible if they do nothing to keep children safe under EARN IT. It will need to “earn” immunity by demonstrating accountability and responsibility as set forth by this legislation. It is imperative that all Congressional representatives check their many differences at the door and join this effort to pass bi-partisan protections to help safeguard our children. I urge concerned citizens to contact their Senators and Representatives to encourage them to support EARN It. It is far past time for all members of Congress and the American people to rally together to say, “Enough Is Enough.”
• Donna Rice Hughes is the CEO, and president of Enough Is Enough and a national expert on Internet safety. She is also an author, speaker, Emmy-Award-winning producer and former Child Online Protection Act Commissioner (1998). www.enough.org
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