OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

DURBIN CALLS ON SENATE COLLEAGUES TO SUPPORT EFFORTS TO PROTECT CHILDREN'S SAFETY ONLINE

Floor Speech

Date: May 17, 2023
Location: Washington, D.C.
Issues: Technology and Communication Minors and Children

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"Social media now fills the role that broadcast TV once did in the lives of our kids. Yet federal laws currently allow social media companies to endanger our children with near total immunity. Social media companies can, and regularly do, sell children's personal information for profit, allow bullies to hound children mercilessly, and allow drug dealers and sexual predators to hunt for child victims on their platforms. And our laws, as we have currently written them, make it nearly impossible for victims to hold these companies accountable. This has to change. The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking bipartisan action to see that it does.

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We cannot continue to place the responsibility for protecting children online entirely on these children, even their parents, and even child advocacy groups alone. No matter how concerned and vigilant they are, parents stand virtually no chance against social media companies that use powerful algorithms to hook kids, to make profit off of them, and [who] cannot be held accountable in a court of law for the harm their products cause. Well Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee want to change that. Over the last two weeks, we have voted out of our Committee a package of four bipartisan bills that would require Facebook, Snapchat, and other social media companies to adhere to new online safety standards for children or pay a price. And the price would be anything from significant fines to civil judgments to criminal prosecution. I say enough is enough.

We can and we will balance the need to protect free speech and the need to protect our kids from harm. What we will not do is accept the status quo where some social media companies continue to destroy lives and make fast fortunes by exploiting a legal loophole that can no longer be justified. We hope our colleagues will join us in protecting America's children and teenagers from online harm."


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