▶ 0:02:28e e
▶ 0:10:58for for
▶ 0:11:47the committee will come to order I I'd like to uh before I begin my opening statement I would like to yield uh for a brief moment to the chairman of the full committee uh you're recognizing sir thank you thank you very much for yelling and I I just want to set the stage for a second before we get started this morning we have a witness at our table today that has received a death threat that I listened to the voicemail someone said he was a leftwing Anarchist and you're here um it's
▶ 0:12:17you can people if they want to listen to it on the committee they're welcome to uh leftwing Anarchist and you're you're testifying before Nazis today and so uh and received a death threat for that we have our finest uh on Capitol here with us today our police officers in the room it's not typical we're going to make sure this is a safe hearing room we're going to make sure we have a very important discussion in front of us today I talked to a mother yesterday someone was going to share that lost her son two weeks ago to suicide because of what
▶ 0:12:47was going on to him online this is a very serious topic most of the bills before us are bipartisan and I think all of them are actually and it's an issue we all want to address but we need to make make sure we do it in the right tone and I know my good friend who's the chairman is going to make sure this committee does it in the right tone today and I appreciate um our officers being here and I apologize for the witnesses for what you've had to go through because you're here to testify for protecting our children I know it's there's been other things
▶ 0:13:17as well and we just want to apologize for what you've had to go to we know you do and I've been to the Center for missing children and what you deal with every day and what you have to deal with is just it's it's disturbing but it's but I walked away going boy I couldn't do that every day but I'm so happy there are people that are because you're there projecting our children and what you see and do every day and what you have to to see what our children go through so and it's just sad but I want to just set the tone we're going to have a safe
▶ 0:13:47hearing room and we're going to have a good hearing today we're going to focus on this subject at hand so I will yeld back gentleman yields back thank you Mr chairman good morning everyone and welcome to today's subcommittee hearing to examine risks to Americans uh safety online uh today's hearing is an incredible it really is extremely important folks and I'm thankful we are hitting the ground early this Congress
▶ 0:14:18to protect ourselves from uh and our children more importantly uh from dangers uh in the online World technology has created a wonderful tool to gather information and connect us to the world but with every new great tool malicious actors have found a way to refigure technology to spread malice and harm people across
▶ 0:14:48the globe while Congress has looked to build walls preventing these harms from occurring we have failed to keep Pace with technology ology take for example the important work Congress did to combat sexual exploitation of children when Congress first worked on this issue it was hard to imagine artificial intelligence could be used to create fake but uh lifelike non-consensual
▶ 0:15:19intimate images of children worse still it was hard to imagine anyone so vow who would actually do it but detestable people are extorting children with technology creating these images and uploading them online for the world to see and it doesn't stop with deep fakes either criminals
▶ 0:15:49are masking themselves as friends or romantic Partners to solicit intimate authentic images of children and ransoming these images for a quick Buck detestable as I said uh the main uh the pain these children experience is hard and it breaks my heart and I know it breaks your hearts too we've got to do something about it you ought
▶ 0:16:19to thank you for your work at the national Center for missing and exploited children and for providing your expertise we appreciate you so very much thanks for being here um again you're doing God's work I'm looking forward to your testimony and why Congress must act immediately to stop this abhorent practice Congress must take a holistic approach to establish
▶ 0:16:51online which why that's why I'm so proud to see many of our members working on different mechanisms to protect our children I for one am eager to move the ball forward on the kids online safety act and I know representative casor is as well while this is not a legislative hearing I'm hoping we can use this hearing to improve the legislation and enact a law that provides parents with the tools they need
▶ 0:17:21while also targeting illegal content from every M uh ever making its way to Children's screens in the first place parents know their children the best so we must adequately equip them with the tools they need to protect their families unfortunately it is it is clear the existing tools do not work I'm tired of hearing big Tech insist
▶ 0:17:52that Solutions are already in place when it is clear they are not working and it's true they're not working no more excuses FKS folks we have to fix this we have to hold big Tech accountable the very companies that have positioned themselves as The Gatekeepers of our children's Online safety continue to let us down as I said Don and Claire thank you for being here to share your experiences and your commitment
▶ 0:18:22to driving real change this hearing should not be partisan it is far too important of any issue uh to use a political this is not a political circus folks we've got to save our kids whatever it takes we must save our children many of us here today have introduced or are working on legislation to build protections from harms online
▶ 0:18:52this is not as part as an issue as I said before and it impacts everyone of our districts and I know there are members here that will share stories and I have one here in 2022 Makenna Brown a 16-year-old from the Tampa Bay Area tragically took her life after being victimized by cyberbullying through multiple social media apps and text messages McKenna's parents
▶ 0:19:22knew none of this until it was late since then her mother Sher has been an advocate for change urging lawmakers to give parents the tools necessary to keep the kids safe I understand there are similarly situated parents here in the audience thank you so very much uh for coming and I want to recognize your own stories efforts and commitment to protect children
▶ 0:19:53from Online safety so I do have other comments but uh I don't want run over we are going to stick to the time um and I'm going to recognize now the ranking member from the great state of Illinois for her five minutes you you recognized yes thank you Mr chairman you know we had in place the what we needed to protect our
▶ 0:20:23children and that's why I am absolutely Furious right now that the there has been this to to fire the two members of the uh of the of the the two members of the FTC who were doing a wonderful job by partisan
▶ 0:20:54making sure that we are and I'll go into more detail protecting our our children which you seem so important it is very important but come on we are now seeing the effort to fire these really important workers you know it makes me absolutely angry
▶ 0:21:24that the president of the United States thinks it is his his ability and his right to fire these people when in fact that is not true it's against the law these individuals we have two here today um that have done such great work their term had not has not been over right now so this was a decision
▶ 0:21:56of justifying what is the rule according to the uh according to the Supreme Court this these individuals should still be on the uh FTC commission so I I I don't really understand why we would want to substitute uh others I understand that the Republicans
▶ 0:22:27are still in place and yet the Democrats who worked so well are now uh considered fired but they really cannot be legally Legally done um so I wanted to uh what is this we tickets in privacy yeah so Gus I wanted to say to
▶ 0:22:57you we have worked on so many issues together on privacy some things on children I agree with you on the urgency of doing these things we have a we have the people in place who can can help to uh to to do it um but now we don't have that bipartisan that bipartisan effort and it makes no sense and it should be overturned um and con then then
▶ 0:23:27continue to make make sure that we are protecting our children what we are seeing right now too is that um not it it's not only protecting protecting our kids but it is also food prices oh yeah food prices and that's certainly something that the um president said the food prices have
▶ 0:23:57to go down instead they have gone up and the food prices the gouging that was taking place is actually something once again that the full compliment of the Federal Trade Commission was looking at and doing also okay what's next gift to billionaires
▶ 0:24:27so this is just one big gift to the billionaires to the billionaires that were the ones that were at the front page at the uh when the president was sworn in those were the people he had there um and what we need is something the advocates for the individuals and I just want to say uh to
▶ 0:24:59um the commissioner is bedya and our witness right here um what's it Slaughter H commissioner Slaughter uh yeah commissioner Slaughter who is here to um talk about the work that they did behind her is um her partner so it seems to me that we had in something that
▶ 0:25:29worked for consumers that helped our our children made sure that there were uh fund uh funds for the health care that they needed um and now that the the uh now the the the guarantee is gone and so I I just want to say that um I'm very disappointed
▶ 0:26:00we didn't hear a word from the Republicans about getting rid of them of the uh Commissioners didn't hear anything from from youus and I well you know how many minutes did you take oh I took about 38 seconds over no that's not true I'm giving you over a minute a minute and N9 seconds over just okay I I Y
▶ 0:26:32back okay uh I'm going to recognize now the ranking excuse me the chairman of the full committee uh for his five minutes thank you thanks thanks uh chair thanks for the recognition and really appreciate the witnesses being here today and all the family members here today you know I wish I could say that we had in place everything we needed to keep our children safe online and we weren't having this hearing today and this hearing is about children it's not about what's going on here in Washington DC and
▶ 0:27:02it's about it's about children it's about the families in this audience who've lost children it's about a phone call I had yesterday with the mother of Eli hiok who uh took his own life about two weeks ago because of something that was going on online he was being scammed he was I guess I didn't even know the term sex tation until till I started talking with her I knew what was going on but I didn't know that term and he was he was a twin brother and uh his he because he was a preey he had a a feeding tube
▶ 0:27:3216 years old had a feeding tube and his mother said to me that well at Leisa doesn't have to deal with his feeding tube anymore when the medical examiner took it out and so it was a kid that that everybody loved that she said I couldn't believe people from five counties showed up to be at his funeral I didn't know he touched that many lives I mean these are who we're here to talk about this is what this hearing is about and I will say to my friend the ranking member that we want this to be bipartisan we want these bills to get a bipartisan vote
▶ 0:28:03and if everything was in place it be in place we would be talking about kosa and children's Online safety which we're gonna have a bill this year it's going to pass as soon as we can get get everything we need together to do we're going to do take it down act where that's why we're having this hearing today to get this moving quickly there was a bipartisan group of house members and Senators who met with the first lady to and and we all saw the the the Lady Who Was Here uh during the State of the Union that was 15 years old and had fake
▶ 0:28:34nudes of her somebody took a picture of her took her face and put it on a body an unclothed body and sent it out to her entire school could you imagine being a 14-year-old girl it wasn't her body but you could you imagine being a 14-year-old girl and they know that everybody in her school thinks that they saw her without her clothes on how horrifying that is there was a lady from new a young lady from New Jersey the same thing happened to her those are just a couple of cases those are a couple of cases and they happen to people all the time and so we're here for a very serious
▶ 0:29:04issue and and I really hope that that I'll take my good friend the ranking member up on her request that we make this bipartisan because it absolutely has to be a bipartison because it touches everybody and everybody's district and I know some of us on this have the phone calls like I had yesterday and if it doesn't I mean I know it moves everybody I know it moves everybody here so what I want to say is that the the take it down act which and and and kosa and all these other bills that protect our children for Online
▶ 0:29:35safety are going to be a focus of this subcommittee focus on this committee and we're get them across the house floor I know taken down act has already passed the Senate so we if we move this out of we have this hearing move it a markup and move it out of committee and goes to the floor it goes right to the president for Signature becomes becomes law and as I said I wish everything was in place and we weren't here today but we're here today because not everything is in place and we have the witnesses that are here that are in the front lines and I said I've been to the National
▶ 0:30:05Center for missing exploited children and it is it is actually phenomenal what you do and and what you it I remember walking out there go I can't believe you you see what you see every day but you but you do it because you want to protect children that's why you're there and you have to see it because people are doing it if people weren't doing it you wouldn't see it and so we have to have lot in place that was the first bill I ever had signed by president President Obama signed a reauthorization of of the national Center for missing sportting children when I was on
▶ 0:30:35Ed Eden then Eden labor when I first got here so I just want to hopefully use my time to say I know we've all been touched by cases in our district we all care we all want it to be better we wish we could 100% fix it but we know it absolutely has to be better and the Predators always try to stay one step ahead of us so we have to have these meetings these hearings we have to have these bills we have
▶ 0:31:06to continuously and vigorously as long as I'm chairman of this committee we absolutely will vigorously look for ways to so that why don't so members of Congress or people don't have to you know we don't want parents to see kids from all over the south central part of Kentucky showing up and I didn't realize that my child had touched so many lives we want him to grow up so their parents can see how many lives they touch and that's what this hearing is about and I know hopefully this is what we focus on we going to focus on
▶ 0:31:36a commission there there's issues for that and time for that what we're here today is focus on how do we protect children and I'll yeld back thank you Mr chairman I appreciate well said thank you and God bless you uh that's why I'm here is to protect our kids and I'm I'm so blessed to have a chair and the ranking member that cares so much about our children to save our kids whatever it takes
▶ 0:32:06so uh I uh with that I'm going to yield five minutes to the ranking member of the full committee Mr palone thank you thank you Mr chairman I I just want to set the record straight for the people that are here today I know I'm not suggesting that the chairman of the full committee or the chairman of the subcommittee don't care but let's not kid the people here to suggest that these bills are going to become law the bottom line is we passed kosa and we passed Capa out of
▶ 0:32:36this Committee in the last session and the house Republican leadership refused to bring these bills to the floor and you know why they're in the pocket of big Tech and the big Tech does not care at all about kids did you if you went to the inauguration you may have noticed that standing or sitting behind president Trump were all the the uh the leaders the CEOs of big Tech they tell the Republicans what to do now
▶ 0:33:06sure our guys here in the committee are well- intended want to do things for the public care about the kids but it doesn't matter because they the house of Republican leadership they're going to do whatever big Tech wants big Tech does not want these bills appreciate you're being here today but it's not going to happen not as long as big Tech controls what goes on here and they do now for years the members of this committee have worked together on a constructive bipartisan basis to pass a broad array of consumer protection
▶ 0:33:36legislation we've regularly delegated enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission an agency that has consistently been America's strongest Champion against the abuses of big Tech it's the FTC that enforces and prevents the abuses of big Tech but big Tech's scammers you know their exploitation of Nations children and adults both on and offline that's what we see every day and it's getting worse but I find it extraordinary that the Republican majority has called this hearing to discuss ways to
▶ 0:34:06increase Online safety particularly for our nation's children while willfully ignoring the outrageous unlawful and unconstitutional attempt just last week by President Trump to fire two duly nominated and confirmed members of the FTC my Republican colleagues must understand that President Trump's unlawful attempt to fire the FDC Commissioners fundamentally undermines the ftc's ability to continue to protect American consumers and yet rather than taking this threat seriously and holding the Trump Administration accountable
▶ 0:34:37Republicans invited as a witness one of the contributors to project 2025 which is the problem here this is the Playbook the administration is using to create an oligarchy that benefits billionaires at the expense of everyone else including little kids in creating the FTC Congress gave the agency broad authority to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive Acts or practices and unfair competition in interstate commerce Congress recognized the FDC needed to be independent from political pressure and be structured
▶ 0:35:07to ensure a measure of consistency across administrations so that it could conduct its work in an even-handed Manner and Congress created an agency led by Commissioners from both parties who cannot be removed by any president on a political whim but only for an I quote inefficiency neglect of Duty or malfeasance but and before now only one president had attempted to fire an FDC commissioner without good cause and the Supreme Court made it clear in the FDC act that Congress expressly and properly limitated the ability
▶ 0:35:37of the executive branch to do so but last week in attempting to illegally fire commissioner Slaughter and bedya president Trump did not claim that they engage in inefficiency neglect of Duty or malfeasance to make such a claim would have been impossible because the Commissioners have served with great distinction so I just want to say again I guess it's obvious that I'm outraged by President Trump's illegal attempts to ask these two Commissioners it certainly seems that President Trump's biggest donors including Elam mus bought not just a
▶ 0:36:08seat to the front row at the president's inauguration but also an agreement that companies will not face accountability for their misdeeds and unfortunately committee Republicans are likely to ignore this flagrant corruption and violation of the laws so look I I just want to say I I know that we have today with us uh one of the Comm Commissioners commissioner Slaughter I still call her the commissioner and behind him is sitting commissioner Boya and I call them the Commissioners because they were not fired they are still the
▶ 0:36:38Commissioners and I'm hopeful at some point they're going to take this to court and the courts will overturn it as the courts have with almost everything that President Trump has done and the question really is is when that happens is the president going to abide by the courts or is he going to say that I don't care about the courts because I don't care about the rule of law and I don't care about democracy so we'll see at one point hopefully the members on the other side of the aisle you know stand up and you know defend the
▶ 0:37:08rule of law but so far I don't see it unfortunately I yield back Mr chairman G gentleman yields back uh now I'm going to recognize the witnesses here today or at least introduce them we appreciate you being here thank you so much for the sacrifice you're making and thank you for doing what you know best protecting our kids and that's why we're here today uh first is Miss Yota surus uh Chief legal officer
▶ 0:37:38National Center for missing and exploited children thanks for being here ma'am appreciate it so much uh Miss Rebecca Kelly Slaughter former commissioner uh Federal Trade Commission thanks for your appearance today Miss Dawn Hawkins uh senior advisor National Center on sexual exploitation thank you again for being here today thanks for your bravery uh and Miss Clara
▶ 0:38:08moral uh fellow ethics and public policy Center thank you again for being here um so what I'm going to do now is I'll recognize our first witness Miss sorus uh you recognize ma'am for your five minutes of testimony thank you thank you technical issue thank you good morning chairman bckas ranking member
▶ 0:38:38chikowski and members of the subcommittee my name is Yota sorus and I'm the chief legal officer for the national Center for missing and exploited children or Nick Mick for over 40 years Nick Mick has operated as a non-profit organization to help find missing children reduce child sexual exploitation and prevent prevent child victimization I'm honored to be here today to share Nick mik's perspective on the escalating threats to child safety online Congress has designated nickm to operate 16 programs
▶ 0:39:09relating to our mission in many cases we are the first call a parent or law enforcement makes when a child goes missing or who's been exploited as a clearing house we support law enforcement in identifying locating and recovering child victims we provide provide child safety education to schools and communities and we support victims and families experiencing the trauma of a missing or exploited child over the past 27 years we have handled hundreds of millions of reports relating to child
▶ 0:39:39pornography or as it's more appropriately referred to child sexual abuse material or cesam based on our work we know that dangers to Children online are expanding in severity complexity and scope today we are witnessing new threats to Children online including the use of generative artificial intelligence to exploit children and increases in children being victimized through online enticement and financial sextortion we need bipartisan by Camal congressional action to address these new threats
▶ 0:40:09we must provide more remedies to child victims new tools for law enforcement and enforcable regulations that incentivize online platforms to better detect report and remove child sexual exploitation while the threats are formidable Congress has a real opportunity this term to confront the real alities of child sexual exploitation and move legislation to protect children nickpic supports many of the legislative initiatives pending this term including the following the take a down act has broad
▶ 0:40:39bipartisan support and will meaningfully impact child safety nickm is encouraged by today's hearing and urges the committee to pass this bill law enforcement has inmed informed Nick mck that cyber tipline reports containing nude or sexually exploitative images of a child often cannot be pursued because they do not constitute cesam this prevents law enforcement from intervening at the earliest indication that a child is being exploited which is especially critical when a child is being enticed or
▶ 0:41:10sextorted this legal Gap leaves Children at Risk take a down closes this Gap by criminalizing The Knowing publication of these images whether real or created by notify apps or AI technology for child survivors a primary goal is to ensure their images are taken down and not accessible online the take a down act will achieve this by establishing a notice and removal requirement for online platforms another important tool to safeguard Children online is age gating enforced
▶ 0:41:40by robust age Assurance measures Nicki is aware of debates regarding whether online platforms or device and App Store providers should be responsible nickm believes that the best approach is an all of the above strategy we support solutions that enforce shared responsibility between online platforms and device and App Store providers while ensuring parents have necessary tools to help protect their children online platforms device and App Store providers and parents cannot on their own effectively
▶ 0:42:10protect children each must be involved to ensure children have safe experiences Nick mck also strongly supports the right of a child victim to have their day in court and bring a civil lawsuit against all parties including online platforms that host or facilitate their abuse currently a child victimized by the endless recirculation of seesam in which they are depicted has no has no civil recourse against an online platform Nick mck recognizes the Nuance required to legislate
▶ 0:42:41this private right of action we remain available to assist the committee in crafting a remedy for as many children as possible that also can Garner sufficient support to pass Congress finally we must update the Cyber tip line reporting process under current law there are no requirements for what information an online platform must include in cyber tiip line reports this too often leads to companies submitting incomplete reports that law enforcement cannot investigate too many reports are submitted without basic information including
▶ 0:43:11the identity and location of the victim and offender and in some cases even the actual content being reported platforms must be required to report specific information to the Cyber tip line and to produce annual reports in closing in thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee nickm encourages Congress to pass the take a down act and move legislation that holds online platforms accountable ensures technology does not overtake child protection laws
▶ 0:43:41and requires the online community to share responsibility like you Nick mck believes that every child deserves a safe childhood thank you and I look forward to your questions I thank you for your testimony and we're going to pass that taken down act believe me next we have Miss Slaughter you're recognized for five minutes for your testimony thank you chairman Guri and bakus ranking members palone and chikowski and members of the subcommittee good morning
▶ 0:44:11I am Rebecca Kelly Slaughter I am a mother of four and I have been honored to serve as FTC commissioner for nearly seven years in fact it was exactly seven years ago on this date that President Trump first announced my nomination thank you for inviting me to test ify about the ftc's vital Consumer Protection work involving online harms and to explain how that work is undermined by president's attempt to fire me and commissioner bedya in direct violation of the FTC act and binding Supreme Court
▶ 0:44:41precedent Congress created the FTC to protect Americans from unfair methods of competition and unfair and deceptive business practices Congress structured the FTC as a bipartisan five member board whose members may be removed only for cause the ftc's structure emphasizes accountability to you the people's representatives and it Shields the FTC from undue influence or political interference so that we can protect American children
▶ 0:45:12consumers workers and honest businesses without fear or favor in my time at the FTC I have given my all to our Vital Mission seeking to build bipartisan consensus around issues such as children's privacy the right to repair and affordable medicine commissioner bedya has worked just as hard yet last week we became the first FTC Commissioners any president has purported to fire since FDR unlawfully removed commissioner Humphrey in 1933 the Supreme
▶ 0:45:42Court unanimously rejected that move and its decision has served as the foundation of Independence not only at the FTC but also at many other multi-member agencies such as the Federal Reserve so why did the president try to fire us last week I can only assume that the president or his advisers are afraid of our voices my colleague chairman Ferguson a republican is running the FTC and has his key staff in place as a minority commissioner my vote may not change the outcome of any particular matter
▶ 0:46:13but I can provide accountability before Congress and the public removing me and commissioner bedya means that we will all remain in the dark if the FTC veers off course or if the president orders chairman Ferguson to treat the most powerful companies in the world like the big Tech firms whose CEOs flanked the president at his inauguration with kid gloves the illegal firings also sent a clear message to the ftc's majority Commissioners you now work under the shadow of arbitrary removal by the president
▶ 0:46:43today's oligarchs have surely noticed that it is not the independent experts at the FTC or the courts who will decide their fate but the president himself and I fear what corporate law Breakers will get away with commissioner bedya and I will be challenging our illegal removals we are working to vindicate the law Congress passed because we care deeply about the honesty and the Integrity of the ftc's work and how it affects the American people I need to take a moment to address the FTC staff directly
▶ 0:47:13thank you I see you I see your hard work keep it up I deeply appreciate it take care of each other and do every day what you do best the right thing in the right way for the right reasons we'll see you soon turning specifically to the world of online harms the FTC has done extraordinary work much of it on a bipartisan basis especially to combat harms to children but I worry about the future of that work in my written
▶ 0:47:44testimony I describe four recent actions that may now be imperiled including protecting kids from AI chat Bots updating children's privacy rules ending video games unfair practice of hooking kids on loot boxes and studying social media Services privacy practices I have the same concern about the entirety of the fdc's work there is one other matter that I worry about most immediately that I know is of concern to this committee the FTC staff are currently alleging that the three big Pharmacy middlemen the pbms
▶ 0:48:14illegally inflated the price of insulin that case is pending before the commission's administrative Court aside from myself and commissioner bedya no other sitting commissioner can participate in that case I honestly don't know what will happen next on these pressing issues and others the presence of minority Commissioners at the FTC lets us provide transparency into our work which is essential for accountability as chairman Ferguson said recently it's helpful for markets for Courts for litigant for government transparency
▶ 0:48:45to have people in the other party pointing out abuses and descents whether it is a Republican or a Democrat in the white house we will all be worse off without those voices since president Trump first appointed Ed me to the FTC I have fostered collaborative dialogue and compromise with each of my Republican colleagues commissioner bedo and I each swore an oath to serve the American people and the Constitution and we will stand by these Oaths I believe the courts will vindicate our rights to do our jobs thank you thank you Miss Slaughter
▶ 0:49:15uh next I'll call Miss hodkinson for your five minutes of testimony thank you chairman Guthrie and and Bill rockus thank thank you ranking members palone and Mrs schakowski I um I'm grateful to be here among you I'm Don Hawkins with the national Center on sexual exploitation a nonpartisan nonprofit with the Law Center Prosecuting landmark cases against Tech Giants I've spent 16 years fighting for human dignity
▶ 0:49:45and as a mother of five like millions of parents this fight is deeply personal tech companies built Empires on our kids backs they've grown grown more profitable and less accountable meanwhile since 2019 Congress has held 23 hearings but has passed nothing to prevent harm this can be the Congress that finally says our our kids deserve better it's been nearly 30 years since Congress passed laws to protect kids online the communications
▶ 0:50:16decency act meant to help platforms remove sexually explicit content has been distorted into near total immunity even for platforms that profit from child sexual abuse coopa meant to Shield kids under 13 from greedy advertisers has become a loophole at 13 companies stop protecting youth right when risks Skyrocket and now Congress is considering a 2.0 version that still locks parents out of supporting the age group most targeted by Predators young
▶ 0:50:46teens that's how we got here an internet policy built for profit not protection we must change the legal and economic incentive so another generation of children are not not sacrificed I want our youth to thrive online but right now this digital world is a danger zone and it's not by accident it's by Design if I who live and breathe this work can't protect my kids from the loopholes how can other parents and yet big Tech tells us just monitor better educate more
▶ 0:51:16keep your kids offline but how dare they parents aren't failing the system is failing us when Apple's parental controls take 20 steps to set up when Roblox says strangers can't contact your child but Predators still reach them when snapmap shares kids realtime location and YouTube kids serve sexualized or violent content through autoplay parents aren't just left in the dark we're handed broken flashlights and told to find our way
▶ 0:51:47meanwhile companies hide behind half-baked tools and P campaigns but it's an illusion in the Massachusetts Tik Tock case internal documents show that their reset button designed to help teens Escape harmful algorithms promoting suicide eating disorders and pornography was deliberately hard to use and reset after just 200 videos that's only 10 minutes of scrolling let me tell you what's really happening a teen boy is sex shorted
▶ 0:52:17after one image within hours he spirals into Despair and he takes his own life we've heard about Eli but there are 41 others that I know about his parents will never hear their their parents will never hear their laugh again because a predator reached them through the screen and Instagram did nothing about it in another case a girl rejects a boy at school and he retaliates by creating AI generated seesam that look just like her and
▶ 0:52:47and he uploads it to pornography websites and she's still fighting to get them taken down but apps that enable that kind of abuse are in the apps rated sayfe for fouryear olds another boy is targeted on Snapchat tricked into creating cesam his abuse is uploaded to Twitter viewed 160,000 times even after submitting proof that he was just a young teenage boy Twitter refused to take it down and when sued Twitter now X argued
▶ 0:53:18that profiting from this abuse alongside sex traffickers is protected under CDA 230 our lawyers are litigating this case right now now these stories are horrific but not rare Apple and Google allow children the front door to all of this is the app stores Apple and Google allow children to silently sign contracts that give apps access to their camera contracts and location yet their entire parental control system is based on age ratings they label nud toying tools Chat Roulette apps
▶ 0:53:48and strip club simulators as safe for nine-year-olds we have to act Congress has the tools and we have bipartisan Solutions like car safety online protection requires layers seat belts airbags and speed limits five steps we need to reform CDA 230 so platforms can't hide behind immunity two pass the App Store accountability act to empower parents before harm occurs with Real ratings and verified parental consent three enact the kids online safety act to
▶ 0:54:18require platforms to design with well-being not Addiction in mind four Advance the take it down protect no fakes and defiance act and five don't cement the myth that teens become digital adults at age 13 as the current Copa 2.0 would do predators are thriving and children are dying it should never again be easier to groom a child than to protect one please don't wait thank you I want to thank you for that powerful testimony we appreciate so very
▶ 0:54:48much and we hear you thank you next uh we have Miss Morel uh you're recognized for five minutes thank you than you good morning chairman Guthrie chairman bakus ranking member palone ranking member chikowski and members of the subcomittee my name is CLA moral and I'm a fellow at the ethics and public policy Center where I direct our technology and human flourishing project over the last several years I have put out reports and model legislation for protecting kids online now implemented
▶ 0:55:19in many states I'm also the mom of three and author of The forthcoming book The Tech exit a practical guide to to freeing kids and teens from smartphones which will be published this June I'm here today because parents critically need better laws to back them up if you take one thing away from my testimony today let it be this America's families need immediate action from Congress tech companies want us to believe no more legislation is necessary they
▶ 0:55:49have worked to convince us that if parents just enable time limits and parental controls children will be safe but leaving it up to parents is failing America's children time limits do nothing to address the underlying addictive design of these Technologies their products hijack human brain vulnerabilities especially of developing brains and a brain exposed frequently to social media resembles a brain hooked on the most highly addictive drugs
▶ 0:56:19even if a child is only on social media for 15 minutes a day the constant craving it creates means kids are mentally consumed by what's happening on the app even when they aren't using it kids take the virtual world with them long after they leave it social media's parental controls are also supposed to protect teens from Bad actors and content but they really only allow parents to set time limits and manage certain settings they give parents no oversight of a child's
▶ 0:56:49feed or Messages Plus the teen has to accept the parent supervision and can cancel it at any time in what sense is that a control most of the popular apps like Snapchat Tik Tok and Discord also block access to third-party controls or filters that a parent May purchase which means when a child can get two pornhhub inside of Snapchat in just five clicks without ever leaving the app a parent would never know
▶ 0:57:19the ineffectiveness and fil of filters and controls has ushered in a tital wave of online pornography exposure children the average age of first exposure is now 12 and kids are not just seeing it ER nurses increasingly see children sexually assaulting each other America's children are suffering parents are exasperated they can't do it alone recently a mom found me after an event and With Tears In Her Eyes said we did everything right we had all the controls
▶ 0:57:49on we had no idea our daughter got a burner phone and got sucked into pornography and dark erotic places on social media leaving it to parents will never work when there is zero parental involvement required whatsoever in the creation of a social media account or in setting up a device or in downloading apps lastly parents on their own can't protect kids from the collective harms caused by digital Technologies even if a few teens use social
▶ 0:58:20media in a school or organization it affects the entire cohort of young people including those who don't use it at all time limits and parental controls can't change these negative group effects nor can they protect children from seeing porn or beheading videos on another child's unprotected device these are collective action problems they require policy Solutions so what should Congress do I offer a few suggestions first restrict social media out of childhood Congress
▶ 0:58:50should age restrict social media to 16 or 18 years old just as it has age restricted other addictive and unsafe products for kids like alcohol or tobacco two require App Store age verification and parental consent like the App Store accountability Act Congress should pass a law requiring app stores to verify the age of each user and for minor users require parental consent for each app download or inapp purchase free pass a federal age verification law for pornography
▶ 0:59:21websites like the screen act 19 states have now done so but we need protection Nationwide put the onus back where it belongs on the porn sites rather than parents for open up greater legal liability for online platforms by reforming section 230 and by further empowering existing authorities like the Federal Trade Commission and State's Attorney General with tools like greater product design liabilities for platforms and five ensure
▶ 0:59:51there is legal accountability for AI so that companies will be compelled to make their products safe or otherwise pay the costs generative AI products should not receive section 230 immunity as a mother of three and on behalf of all parents Across America we need your help thank you for your time and I look forward to your questions thank you so very much I want to thank uh the entire panel for their testimony today and I want to thank the audience uh for being
▶ 1:00:22here today the the parents uh and the child advocates and the children uh you really do make a difference all right uh I'm going to go ahead and start with real to myself uh for five minutes for questioning and I'm going to start with Miss Soros uh thank you again for being here today and for all the work you and your colleagues at uh ncmec uh do I have no doubt your work
▶ 1:00:52is directly responsible for saving the lives of count countless children we appreciate you so heartbreakingly our country is plagued with criminals who search for loopholes to terrorize Americans with nonconsensual intimate images this must stop the Senate recently passed the takedown act targeting the abhorent uh criminals who engage in
▶ 1:01:22this practice how will take take it down protect children from these predators and give Americans the tools to remove it from online please thank you chairman bakz for the question um I highlighted two of the most important factors of take it down in my written testimony in great detail but there are really two primary ways that take it down will provide um additional remedies to um to protect Children online both from real nude sexually
▶ 1:01:52exploitive images and also the AI generated images as well well so um firstly there is currently a legal Gap that makes it very difficult for law enforcement to investigate and for prosecutors to pursue cases that involve nude or sexually exploitative images of a child that do not meet the legal definition of child pornography the legal definition of child pornography requires sexually explicit conduct sexual intercourse and other very extreme forms of sexual interaction but nude and
▶ 1:02:22sexually exploitative images often fall short of that definition so crucially take it down will simply criminalize those images that currently law enforcement is struggling to find the proper Avenue to investigate and pursue um in addition to filling that legal Gap um as as we talked about um the take a down bill will create a formal mechanism for notice and takedown or notice and removal as it's um sometimes referred to and nickm we hear from survivors that one of the core
▶ 1:02:53um one of the core things that they are seeking is just to to ensure their images aren't online anymore to ensure that they can have control over those images when they do get circulated again so take it down will create um really a process for a victim or somebody who's working closely with that victim to uh alert social media an online platform when a child's image is online and then it will create a process by which that social media platform has to be on notice and remove that content um within a certain period of days thank
▶ 1:03:23you so much uh next Miss Hawkins I was reading through your testimony and I must say as a father myself and a grandfather I really appreciate your comments on the difficulties parents face when trying to protect their children online your testimony highlights many options to protect Children online including establishing protections uh in kosa uh giving parents more control over what applications are downloaded
▶ 1:03:53uh from App Stores and updating rules related to miners uh personal information to name just a few so the question is why is it important for Congress to legislate on multiple fronts as opposed to move one bill that tackles only one of these issues thank you m thank you Mr chairman for the question you're absolutely right we wouldn't protect cars um kids
▶ 1:04:24kids in cars with just seat belts we need airbags and car seats and crash resistant features because kids safety deserves layers and the same thing happens for Children online these bills all tackle different entry points for harm such as design flaws parental disempowerment image-based sexual abuse and predatory contracts together they can form a net of protection but alone they leave gaps and our children fall through
▶ 1:04:54thank you so very much uh next I I'm going to go ahead and ask this question quickly because I want to stick to the five minutes uh parents need more tools and children need more safeguards this is for Miss Morel uh what tools and safeguards should exist online to protect children I know you you have brought this up obviously but you want to elaborate briefly thank you thank you for the question and I know we're short on time I would just say
▶ 1:05:24um as Miss Hawkins said need multiple layers I think a critical tool is just actual parental involvement um in the creation of a social media account or in downloading apps right now parents are not part of that process and so even if a parent wants their child off social media a child can easily enter their birth date agree to a whole host of terms and conditions enter a contract with a tech company all without a parent's knowledge and so the critical tools I think we need are putting parents back in the driver seat or their kids online experiences
▶ 1:05:55very good thank you very much now I'll yield five minutes to the ranking member of the subcommittee michowski I take great pride in having been a consumer protection leader um for years and years in the state legislature and and here now in the in the Congress but one of the things that has been such a help is to have the Federal Trade Commission
▶ 1:06:25to be the cop on the beat to make sure that these things are happening if this were to go through um as the president wanted it which would be illegal so I'm hoping that you will take this to court um what the H how would this affect consumers and all the people who need the work that that you
▶ 1:06:55do if you could uh could tell me that thank you thank you um yeah you're right the FTC does very vital Consumer Protection work including advocacy including getting money back to people who have been harmed in fact last year the FTC returned $337 million back into the pockets of people who had it wrongfully taken from them from frauds and scams and it does that on a bipartisan basis through changes in administ ation
▶ 1:07:26through transitions that bipartisan structure of the FTC that Congress created provides enormous value to the people that we serve the children the parents the consumers the workers the honest businesses because it provides continuity and credibility in our work let me give you a couple of examples there are ways in which the the commission Commissioners come together and find consensus on important cases and important matters that protect consum consumers so for
▶ 1:07:56example when we're thinking about children we brought a case uh against epic where we got $500 million and penalties for Epic from epic for how they treated children through fortnite including um how kids were paying uh tricked into paying for games and also importantly to the Witnesses in the subcommittee um allowing strangers to have access to children to communicate uh through that online game that was an important bipartisan
▶ 1:08:26effort of the committee uh my former colleague commissioner Wilson wrote a very powerful concurrence in that case about that work related to children in particular um sometimes we don't find consensus and that is also important for the commission because we can help uh provide accountability and transparency to Congress and to the public about other ways things could be done maybe more uh relief that was left on the table or where Commissioners think
▶ 1:08:56there was an overreach by the commission that's an also an important thing to highlight so I think the structure of the FTC that Congress created drives towards bipartisan consensus continuity credibility and provides accountability and transparency even where that consensus isn't reached and all of that redounds to the benefit of the people that we serve so what you're saying though is that because of the ability of the the Federal Trade Commission
▶ 1:09:27things really can happen I mean there are laws that make it um safer for our kids and our consumers yeah that's exactly right the Federal Trade Commission administers the Federal Trade Commission act the children's online privacy protection act and various other laws that are designed by Congress to protect children to protect consumers uh and we want that Administration to be done with without fear or favor impartially
▶ 1:09:57based on the facts and the law in front of the commission um not based on fear of removal uh for failure to do a favor for a political donor or uh one of the big tech companies that don't particularly care for our aggressive enforcement approach well I want to thank you congresswoman uh Slaughter um congresswoman no that's not that's not correct um for the for the work that uh that that you do
▶ 1:10:28and let us hope that the courts will decide that uh the Federal Trade Commission is the appropriate way that we protect our our consumers and you do it in a bipartisan way except that right now the Democrats have been excluded from from this so we have to fight back thank you very much and I y back I thank the
▶ 1:10:58gentle lady and next we have uh we're going to recognize the chairman of the full committee Mr Guthrie from the great state of Kentucky for his five minutes of questioning thanks and I appreciate the rank member saying congresswoman Slaughter because she was a great lady she represented Upstate New York but you could tell from her accent she was from Appalachia Kentucky couldn't you so thanks for for that um you know getting back to as you mentioned thanks Miss Hawkins for mentioning Eli and and you look at as a parent and a grandparent
▶ 1:11:29now obviously have responsibilities and roles but what what you we saw with Eli was they think was just a one time as you mentioned in one evening it happened in one evening and and so we all need to be alert but you can't be alert 100% of the every second of the day 100% of the time so it's important that we have these new laws in place and uh you know Eli has mentioned he was a twin he was a premi i' mentioned uh some of of the things he had to live with in life and so I I didn't mention
▶ 1:11:59that you know his sister's now spending the first two weeks of her 16 years on Earth without him so you think about that just all the pain that that this has caused and and you know just it's hard to imagine what families have gone through and and so miss sorus and miss Hawkins would you just share how the take it down act would help us hold these people responsible other laws you said kosa take it down act particularly would would hold these people responsible start with Miss uh sor if you would thank you chairman Guthrie um absolutely take it down
▶ 1:12:29as as I described earlier is really going to feel for children this crucial legal Gap that exists right now um I I think people often think that you know any image of a child that may be exploitative in some way that may include some nudity um automatically is child pornography and under the law that's actually not not accurate child pornography is a very severe extreme form of uh sexual exploitation it requires sexually explicit conduct but we see now this proliferation especially in enticement cases and financial extortion cases as you mentioned
▶ 1:12:59with your uh constituent um and absolutely with AI generated image imagery we see nude and sexually exploitative imagery proliferating more and there simply aren't legal Avenues to address this appropriately um so we need take it down we need to fill that legal Gap we need to give law enforcement tools and prosecutors tools so that they can intervene at the earliest possible moment that a child is being enticed or sextorted or abused on online and they can prevent further abuse thank you Miss Hawkins and I'll add too
▶ 1:13:29that the take it down act would bring significant hope to individuals like Eli or Gavin uh Guffy Mr Fry in South Carolina a lot of these youth feel hopeless because we're told again and again if you make a mistake if you take a photo of yourself if you share it online and it gets out there there's nothing that you can do and these Predators they they just that's what they use that kind of desperation and this would give law enforcement and these Youth
▶ 1:13:59and adults frankly too hope that we can get we could do something about it and we can take this kind of abuse content down okay M moral do you have a comment on that as well oh sorry I would agree that I think um I'm really concerned about the threats of AI as the the kind of next wave um of threats to our kids online and I think that we need solutions that are going to make it really clear that there will be consequen if AI products are used to harm kids okay so um and also
▶ 1:14:29the three of you again so that it requires websites and social media platforms that take it down act to remove non-consensual intimate images within 48 Hours of requests uh finally given survivors and their families giving them a new Avenue for recourse as an advocate who works with many of these families can you speak to why providing new notice and take down tools are so critical you want to start yeah absolutely thank you um as I mentioned earlier for many survivors it's really not about criminal
▶ 1:15:00remedies it's not about Prosecuting somebody it's it's not about going to court with their own civil lawsuit it's simply about making sure those images do not continue to circulate are not online so notice and takedown programs Nick MC operates one obviously we're a nonprofit is a voluntary initiative that that we operate social media platforms can um comply with our request or not when we we serve a notice and takedown um on a company instances of giving a takedown notice and being told no um we have actually
▶ 1:15:30on our website a list of companies that um are are not responsive or take a um an unacceptably long time to respond that's publicly available that's good that absolutely and happy to provide those details after the hearing but what what the notice and takedown uh provision within take a down act does is it it codifies that so it provides some teeth it provides a formal process it requires and puts companies on notice that they must actually engage M Hawkins we we have also requested our attorneys that content be removed and the companies ignore Google for example told
▶ 1:16:00us that uh a victim of sex trafficking her trafficker is in prison that um there were no signs of coercion in the in the material so they wouldn't remove it um you know we need the take it down act because otherwise this content just proliferates more and more I'm a victim myself of image-based sexual abuse now that my kids are about to get online I live in absolute fear about what my kids are going to see about me thank you thank you for show my time's up but for the importance of this thank you I thank the
▶ 1:16:30chairman thank you gentleman yields back now I'll recognize the ranking member of the full committee Mr pom for his five minutes of questioning thank you Mr chairman as I've said president Trump's attempted illegal firings of the democratic FTC Commissioners is not only a blatant violation of the law but also puts American consumers in danger of kneecapping the very agencies designed by Congress to protect all of us from unfair and deceptive business practices and unfair methods of competition and I have to
▶ 1:17:00say again that I am disappointed that my Republican colleagues including those on this committee have remained silent as the president threatens the independence of this agency and Republicans on this committee have routinely said that they care deeply about protecting all people and especially our kids from online harm I heard you all say that today but now you remain silent as the agency that protects consumers is threatened and make no mistake this is just the beginning president Trump has sent a clear message that he's willing to ignore the rule of law and
▶ 1:17:30Supreme Court president to benefit himself and his billionaire buddies so Mr chairman I'd like to ask oh is he not chairman Guthrie is not here right no then let me ask chairman Bill rockus if are you planning on holding an oversight hearing or any kind of hearing to demand answers from the Trump Administration about this illegal action by the president uh with regard to the FDC Commissioners that I believe harms consumers and harm our children are you planning on any
▶ 1:18:00kind of hearing on that issue if you will yeah I I don't have I have to speak with the full committee chair with and I'd be happy to discuss it with you as well the three of us can get together as a matter of fact we can even talk to the ranking member the of the uh of the the committee the subcommittee so yeah we can have those discussions all right I appreciate that um I'm concerned that as
▶ 1:18:31president Trump escalates his attacks on our democracy and gleefully destroys the institutions created by Congress to benefit all Americans I just wonder if there's any action that President Trump could take that will result in an oversight hearing on this committee because I do believe that part of this committee's responsibility is to review actions taken by the president regardless of the fact that he is is a Republican and the illegal attempt at firing of commissioner Slaughter and B I think is just the beginning
▶ 1:19:01and if my Republican colleagues refuse to speak out they're going to show everyone that they're willing to put the profits of big Tech billionaires ahead of kids online safety so let me go to commissioner SL Slaughter in your view if this illegal move is allowed to stand is anything stopping president Trump for removing any sitting commissioner including those from the Republican party for launching in investigations he does not agree with or refusing to dismiss cases against his crooked big Tech buddies
▶ 1:19:31I know you got into this a little in your opening but you got two minutes if you know take the two minutes if you can to you know to talk more about it if you will thank you sir uh you're correct the same constitutional and statutory principle that protects me from removal protects majority Commissioners from removal protects members of the Federal Reserve Board of protects members at many other agencies and so if I can legally be removed in violation of
▶ 1:20:02the plain language of the statute I don't think there's anything that would stop other Commissioners from being removed including the majority Commissioners and I think it's worth pointing out relevant to the conversation we're having here today I agree with so much of what the witnesses at this table are saying they're highlighting incredibly important issues uh my colleague commissioner bedya has been a particular thought leader on the issue of kids uh and the attention economy and online um addictive behavior this
▶ 1:20:32is something we care incredibly deeply about and in fact in January of this year we took the unusual step of making public the fact that the FTC referred to the Department of Justice a complaint against snap uh for the harms caused by its AI chatbot directed at children um my colleague now chairman Ferguson desent and express concerns about the First Amendment rights of those chatbots that's an important conversation that we can have that
▶ 1:21:02we can have on a bipartisan commission but the underlying concern about the harms to kids as these Technologies are developing is enormously important requires bipartisan attention um and I really worry that not only is the commission deprived of the voices of myself and commissioner bedoya but that the Republican commissioners that the FTC will similarly feel pressure to avoid um taking actions that may be consistent and required
▶ 1:21:32by the law but unpopular with some of the president's supporters thank you so much ail back gentleman yields back now recognize the vice chair of the subcommittee Mr falter for his five minutes of question thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman I have to admit I might be a little bit confused if I'm in the right Committee hearing I seehow seem to got sidetracked into uh presidential Branch Personnel discussions in food prices so I do have
▶ 1:22:02some questions but they have to do with kids online safety and uh and that subject matter am I in the right place do I have that subject matter correct all right thank you so um Miss Morel this question has to do with Section 230 immunity and we've had a lot of discussions on on that uh in the in the past but I'd like to just talk with you for a minute about how uh section
▶ 1:22:32230 immunity protection should apply when you insert an AI algorithm to that this is Uncharted Territory for us and could you just do you believe that that immunity should protect should protection should be in place if there's an AI algorithm that's clearly changing the content or redirecting it I do not I think it's clear that AI products are not hosting third-party speech section 230
▶ 1:23:03was meant to protect platforms for liability um for hosting thirdparty content ai chatbots ai tools are actually a product it is product design it is not meant to be protected by section 230 and it is not hosting another person's speech it is a computer generated product people are training IT training the a I on certain data and it's being taught to recognize certain patterns and so the output of AI is actually a just amalgamation
▶ 1:23:33of data that has been recognized by a process and so to me that clearly falls under product design not uh under Section 230 immunity which is meant to protect platforms from liability for hosting the speech of other people so those comments make sense to me and and I I would parallel your thought process there our challenge as a legislative body is is is trying to put this how do we put this into a legislative format and
▶ 1:24:04if if we're able to do that how do we make that enforcable and I realize this might be out of your lane but if you have any comments on that I'd be interested in enforceability yes um my my brief comment would be I think a very narrow solution would just be a clarification um and a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate to this effect last Congress um that would just clarify that section 230 immunity should not apply to generative Ai and what that means then is that there is a path for litigation
▶ 1:24:34for um these companies to be held accountable um for harms caused by those products and so it just it doesn't actually need to necessarily prescribe all the actions but it just opens up legal liability and that is what we see in America that the way we typically hold private companies accountable for harms to Consumers is through channels of litigation and so I think having that open would compel AI companies to make sure that their products are not harming consumers M sorus just
▶ 1:25:04your perspective same question 230 immunity AI intervention there but in the lens of sexually exploitation your comments or thoughts absolutely so I definitely join in the opinion of my colleague um at the end of the panel table I I would also add that AI is actually joining as a partner in content creation so in addition to not simply not hosting third-party content it is um part of the creative process um we see offenders going on using um text or image-based uh AI tools to um really
▶ 1:25:35uh create the vision that they have for what they want to see what kind of sexual exploitation they want to see of a child to engage with AI um sexually as a child so again AI clearly is beyond the scope of section 230 because again not hosting but actually um creating content with you as the user um I my view and I you know would want to give it a little more deliberation I don't think that needs to be clarified within section 230 I think we need to see lawsuits filed and we we need to see how courts will address this because
▶ 1:26:05when you look at what AI is doing again it is clearly outside the scope of what section 230 was intended so to I'm going to stay with you we only got 30 seconds left but on the same vein fakes and and and I'm concerned about the impact of that is there a legislative or is there a role for congress in in perhaps identifying digital fores or or quick comments on deep fakes and how we might deal with that with enforcement absolutely I would just highlight three items so we're dealing with criminal provisions and take it
▶ 1:26:35down I think there also is room for Congress to look at civil remedies as well for victims who are um abused or exploited through deep fakes but I also think Congress has a real um very important role in looking at preventive measures how are companies AI companies um being allowed to Red Team to use technology to ensure their their products are safe before they rush to Market okay thank you for that Mr chairman yield back I appreciate it very much thanks for yielding back and now recognize my friend and
▶ 1:27:05uh partner in the the Coosa legislation that we're going to keep pushing forward get it across the Finish Line this time uh and I'll recognize uh my Philip Floridian Miss caster for her five minutes of questioning well thank you chairman Bill rakas and you deserve a lot of credit for uh helping to hammer out the kids online safety act and moving the legislation through committee uh last year um you know for many years the committee has worked on this because the online harms to
▶ 1:27:35kids the exploitation is plain as day to parents and families across the country um big Tech platforms use their manipulative designs to addict kids to their products and funnel them to harmful or exploitive uh content they collect massive amounts of of personal information some of some of it incredibly sensitive uh to fuel their algorithms uh always elevating their profits over kids
▶ 1:28:06safety uh that's why I partnered with with rep bacus and uh Tim Wahlberg uh leaders in the Senate a lot of The Advocates in the off in the audience today uh to help establish safeguards for kids online kosa would young people and parents with the tools safeguards transparency needed it's a design code Copa the children's online privacy protection act bans the big Tech
▶ 1:28:36platforms from collecting the private data you need both uh working together Kaa remember would ban uh advertising targeted to kids and teens create an eraser button for parents and kids to eliminate that personal information online but both both rely on a strong Federal Trade Commission to enforce the law um the bills passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee on September 18th of last
▶ 1:29:08year so we pressed the speaker to bring them up for a vote it was passed by partisan uh in the Senate over 60 votes probably I think it was about 90 votes um September 18th October we pressed the speak speaker Mike Johnson and Steve scales to bring it up we pressed in November parents and Advocates kept on it they pressed in December and are demoralized today
▶ 1:29:38because the Republican speaker and Majority Leader blocked it even in the face of the surgeon general's report the higher rates of suicides all the tragedies that are all to playing today the pornography that is so exploit qu ative online and and all of the addiction um so then the parents I have to say we're very dejected as many of us were at the inauguration to see these big Tech CEOs have a front row
▶ 1:30:08seat uh at president Trump swearing in and then what happens uh last week the president takes the cops off the beat the folks who are charged with enfor forcing uh kids safety laws privacy laws um it's illegal what they've done to Commissioners badya and Slaughter is illegal the law that Congress passed years ago directed the
▶ 1:30:38commission to be bipartisan independent it's an enforcement agency to protect Americans from unfair and deceptive practices and now they just want to throw the law out the door and um yes we can talk about the importance of passing new legislation here in this hearing but if you take the cops off the beat you give the big Tech CEOs a front row seat to the inauguration you block uh the
▶ 1:31:08kosa and Copa that was that was hammered out over years of work in this committee you can you know how do you restore Trust on this and it's going to be up to this committee to stand up for parents and young people and stand up to these big Tech uh CEOs who want to control our lives and they're willing to sacrifice our kids well-being for their profits and and I ask my Republican colleagues
▶ 1:31:39please join us in this say something about taking the cops off the beat uh from the FTC commissioner Slaughter thank you so much you uh we're working with your colleagues to address youth safety and privacy online um what do you recommend now going forward for this committee uh and how can we restore the cops on the beat um back at the FTC thank you uh I agree with you excuse me and I agree with the witnesses here that
▶ 1:32:09there are important laws that congress needs to pass uh I've been really concerned about whether the statutory tools the FTC right has right now are up to the job and I've advocated for privacy legislation and other tools um but the really important question is how will those be administered if Congress can pass the laws how will they be administered and will they be administered without fear or favor which is what every American deserves and especially what every parent sitting in
▶ 1:32:39this audience today deserves um I can't tell you how deeply moved I am personally by the stories that we're hearing and how very much I want to be able to get back to work on behalf of these parents and other parents out there uh we need an FTC that is fully composed to be able to do that administration of the laws without fear or favor and help protect our kids thank you very much back I thank the general lady General lady
▶ 1:33:09Ys back now recognize Miss harburger from the great state of Tennessee for her five minutes questioning hey thank you Mr chairman and I want to thank the witnesses for being here today I want to thank you for speaking up for our kids um you know if the examples against innocent children that you provided in your testimony do not give us members of righteous anger about this issue then we better we just better check our very soul and as
▶ 1:33:39a parent and I know there's parents in the audience who have gone through this and I I am so sorry for you because it could happen to anybody don't ever think that you are exempt from this happening young people you listen if you read the testimony of what happened to these children you you probably wouldn't let them online or you probably wouldn't get online uh you know as a parent you try to uh make sure your child's safe and kept away from harm but it's very clear as technology continues
▶ 1:34:10to accelerate just how difficult it is uh to protect your kids from these Predators um and if you listen if they're sick depra possessed and dangerous criminals are what they are and if you really really want to know what I think they should do with these once law enforcement catches one then you see me after this hearing is over and I'll be happy to tell you what I think I want to start with Miss suros um your very powerful testimony
▶ 1:34:40gave horrifying accounts of children being prayed upon by adult sex offenders with the data already available how can platforms better identify users who are posing as children thank you for the question um in every other industry there is a concept of know your customer um it's what provides safety and compliance um and that simply does not exist online does not exist for social media companies so um you know that that is certainly first and foremost they need to know who's getting online how they are
▶ 1:35:10registering if they are representing themselves truthfully whether they're an adult whether they're a teenager um we've seen in some of these extortion cases that individuals are creating profiles you know grown men adult men are creating profiles IND that they are a 15 16 year old girl they're allowed to post photos and create a whole Persona online that to a child especially a child who's very trusting who's only been online for a few years um seems very authentic so um you know I would definitely say they need to know their customer there needs to be transparency
▶ 1:35:41reporting around how uh social media platforms are accomplishing that task and there also needs to be age Assurance um I think all of us have touched on that issue a little bit that there's still a lot to be determined around how to effectuate that but we need to create spaces for Children online that are safe um you know we allow children to get online have private conversations 24hour hours a day with whoever is online exchange content videos and images we would never allow that in real life
▶ 1:36:12um so we we need to we need to understand the environment and we need to work together to accomplish that um do you think this information could prove an asset for parents monitoring uh their child's online activity to ensure they're U interacting with their peers and not some sick perverted monster who deserves to be locked up until Judgment Day absolutely um I think all of us you know agree that parents play a role here but tech companies need to meet them I would say more than halfway they need to provide tools that are
▶ 1:36:42comprehensible that are easy that are accurate and they need to provide transparency so parents actually understand how the algorithms work and how the apps work you know it's sad to say though that you know I interacted with middle schoolers and taught Sunday school for 24 years and I used to say it was a fatherless Society but it's a parentless society in a lot of ways and we some of those children don't always have a parent who will protect them um I understand that the national Center of missing uh and exploited children in law
▶ 1:37:12enforcement are interested in prioritizing quality of reports over pure quantity and that one thing that's helped with that is uh bundling of reports could you tell us a little bit why that's so important and how could we encourage more companies to do that absolutely so um the the process of receiving cyber tip line reports at at nickm um really if I can just give a brief explanation we we are the uh operate the online reporting mechanism for reports regarding child sexual exploitation so we are flooded
▶ 1:37:42with tens of millions of reports from social media companies and then we provide those reports to law enforcement around the world but of course domestically federal and state local law enforcement um there has been a a really I would say an issue in recent years as companies are increasing the volume of reports that reports that are really related um regarding the same image regarding the same incident regarding the same time frame have been reported um one by one as separate reports yeah that creates a tremendous burden for
▶ 1:38:12law enforcement so we were um very gratified this year that um meta which is one of the larger reporters it is certainly one of the larger social media companies agreed to start bundling um in that are related um it reduces the the uh the work burden and and the time that law enforcement has to consume on those reports okay very good and I think I'm over my time so I Y back I think the Gent lady now recognize my friend from the state of Florida Mr Soo for his five minutes of questioning thank you chairman
▶ 1:38:43and thank you to all the families for coming today sexual exploitation bullying online is a horrific threat to our families Across the Nation Democrats we support kosa we voted for it already last term we also support the take it down act and we stand with the families here today and the excruciating stories that you've had to tell us the reason why we're so Furious is because president Trump just illegally fired two of the five Federal Trade Commission Commissioners they're here today
▶ 1:39:13both Miss slaugher and Mr bedya the FTC is already charged with protecting kids online and so when these folks are fired it's just outrage ages to see no one say anything about it we're talking about standing with these families and then none of you will stand up to president Trump when he just dismantled the very commission that's charged with doing this stuff when kosa is passed when take it down is passed it'll be the FTC that'll be enforcing it that's why we're so frustrated today
▶ 1:39:44because the commission is now paralyzed our Republican colleagues say nothing because they're scared of the president so they express sympathy but do nothing about restoring the commission the second concern is we passed kosa last term and it never made it to the house floor it was killed by Speaker Johnson and then the internet privacy Bill we even had a hearing set for it to vot it out of the committee and that hearing was pulled
▶ 1:40:14back in front of the entire Capital what an embarrassment because the powers that be didn't want this bill to pass internet privacy should have passed it passed when we had the house and we need the speaker we need the chairman and others to stand with us on this sympathy is not enough hearing all your stories is not enough and then when we see Tech billionaires having better seats than Republican Governors at Trump's inaugural that does not Inspire confidence
▶ 1:40:45so we've brought you here to hear your stories and we appreciate it my biggest fear is that nothing is going to happen again and that would be an travesty we these families deserve to be heard and not used for hearing their stories sound sympathetic have a listening ear and then nothing happens commissioner Slaughter uh it's really important as that we address all the families that are here today the FTC is already charged with whatever laws are already on the books to
▶ 1:41:15help protect Children online and so it would be great to kind of explain what the work that you all were doing right before you were fired sure thank you um I agree with you about the importance of thinking about the families that are here today and the people that they're representing uh I it is such a critical issue it moves me so deeply as a human as a parent uh and as a Federal Trade commissioner um and I share
▶ 1:41:46the view of the parents on this panel and in this room that parents can do their absolute best I try to do my absolute best best for my children um and like some of my fellow panelists I'm pretty expert in this stuff and it is still really hard for me so what we need is for the government to empower government agencies to make sure that the onus is on the companies to keep children safe in the first instant and in order to do that well we need the government agencies
▶ 1:42:16to not be afraid of those companies and and when we pass kosa and you are reinstated as a commissioner after we win in court what can you then do to help enforce these laws to protect these families well I can do the kinds of things I've been doing for the last seven years as an FTC commissioner which is taking on the biggest companies in the world without fear or favor based on the facts and based on the law I voted to bring lawsuits against meta I've uh involving privacy practices including
▶ 1:42:46involving kids um I voted for a settlement with Amazon over Alexa's collection of children 's voice data that was illegal um I worked with my colleague commissioner Wilson a Republican and uh my former colleague commissioner Chopra a Democrat to set up a study on social media and video streaming services privacy practices to provide transparency to the public to this committee to Congress about all of the data that is collected by these companies and how it should be
▶ 1:43:16how it is used uh and that study was finally published this fall uh we brought cases I mentioned against epic involving communication with children and tricking children into payments I referenced in my testimony um a case we brought just last fall against gim impact for loot boxes that trick kids and get them hooked into gambling with their parents money online thank you for the extensive things you're doing members these families don't need our sympathies they've come here today for action and I PL to V to support these
▶ 1:43:47bills thank you gentleman yields back uh and I believe Mr Alber is is next uh so we'll we'll ask you to stick within the 5 minutes if you can uh and I'll recognize you for your five minutes of questioning well thank you Mr chairman uh I am so happy that we are having this hearing because it's on a topic that's de deeply personal to me and I think incredibly important particularly talking about the take it down act um I had the honor of last year leading the house AI
▶ 1:44:17task force and if you read our report you know that the issue of non-consensual intimate imagery is one of what we felt is the most pressing issues that needs to be dealt with immediately and we feel like this is lwh hanging fruit everyone ought to be able to agree that this is unacceptable uh this is a problem that's being faced by youth across our country and I'm hoping that maybe we can be an example here we're we're in a an era of intense political polarization but I think this is something we can do on a bipartisan basis and so I am really happy that we're having the discussion
▶ 1:44:47about that today uh also the App Store accountability act I think is an important piece of legislation um I want to talk about that a little bit uh I ran a development Studio the did app development for a number of years and so it's this is something I know a little bit about and this bill needs some work you know uh one of the points I wanted to make is that when we're talking about the difference between putting obligations on App Stores and putting obligations on developers most developers of apps are not professional companies
▶ 1:45:17like the one I ran they are a couple of people making an app for fun in a garage and so to the extent that you can you want to put application you want to put obligations on the App Stores not the developers and I'll I'll give you a couple of concrete examples there's specific language in the bill about when developers are required to use the application programming interface uh of an app store we call it an API uh and there's no need to make developers do that the App Store can enforce those restrictions for example you wouldn't need
▶ 1:45:48as a developer to have to enforce an age limit if you're uh if you are saying this application is for adults only the App Store can enforce that and not allow children to even launch the app that's what you want to do uh the same thing with purchase restrictions same thing with time usage restrictions so I I'm hopeful that we can tighten up some of that language and make it clear where those obligations lie as uh as this bill moves forward and then lastly I just wanted to spend a minute talking about enforcement because we've heard some pretty compelling testimony
▶ 1:46:18this morning about uh the need for reforming section 230 I think someone brought that up several witnesses talked about private right of action um and I think we need to be very cautious about that because we have a number of different Tools in our toolbox when it comes to enforcement and I don't think anyone would agree that the world would be a better place if we just sued each other more often right that's the last resort we we want people to follow the law and be good actors without having to resort to using the
▶ 1:46:48courts to enforce the law uh I uh along the the years of my public service earlier I served as the mayor of a small City I think a number of us on the Das have had that honor uh and I had an occasion where and a abusive Law Firm rolled through town and sued a number of our businesses under the Americans with Disabilities Act for little minor technical violations uh and so I saw you know the flip side of this when when lawsuits are used abusively and I I think what it taught me is that
▶ 1:47:19companies that want that have a profit motive for bringing these lawsuits are not suing big Tech you know they're suing the mom and pop people that don't have the resources to defend themselves so what I'm saying is this should be the last resort we have better tools civil penalties is great uh FTC enforcement under uh as an unfair or deceptive business practice is a is a powerful tool empowering state attorney generals uh is a powerful Tool uh private right of action is a last resort and uh I hope we can keep that
▶ 1:47:49in mind as we move forward because what we don't want to create is another Ada that that creates a profit incentive for uh abusive lawsuits against Americans and American companies but I want to thank everyone for your very heartfelt testimony this morning really enjoyed the hearing I'm looking forward to working uh particularly with the take a down act to to resolve this critically important issue I yield back I appreciate it thank you for that valuable information I appreciate it gentleman yields back now I recognize Miss Tran for her five minutes of
▶ 1:48:19questioning thank you Mr chairman I want to thank the families who are here today sharing their stories uh I want to thank our Witnesses particularly FTC commissioner Slaughter for being here to testify today I also saw um FTC commissioner bedya earlier sitting behind the witnesses and I want to thank him for coming our Democratic FTC Commissioners have been through a lot in the past week and I applaud them for showing up to shed light on the administration's latest assault on
▶ 1:48:49Independent agencies tasked with protecting hardworking Americans from corporate abuses the president's unlawful actions don't just hinder the Commissioners from doing their work these Reckless and Lawless decisions will directly hurt consumers and prevent this committee from enacting strong effective and enforcable laws to protect Americans especially our children online the FTC has per was purposefully designed
▶ 1:49:20as an independent agency by lawmakers understood the incompatibility of partisanship and consumer protection and sought to safeguard against powerful interests influencing the work of the agency the ftc's current Republican chair Andrew Ferguson understands the importance of Independence as well in his nomination hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee Ferguson testified that quote consumer protection and competition are not partisan
▶ 1:49:50issues in an interview with the kada Center last year Fergus explained that Independence encourages careful deliberation and allows for the commission to quote test theories internally before marching them out the door chair Ferguson makes a fundamental point that President Trump clearly does not understand consumer protection is not and should never be a partisan Endeavor it requires the best Minds to come together to protect
▶ 1:50:21those who would otherwise be abused by powerful corporate actors the subject of today's hearing is Online safety particularly for our kids I've been outspoken about holding big Tech accountable protecting consumers personal data and demanding transparency from online service providers so too have many uh have my Republican colleagues with whom I've worked on these issues over the years but I must ask the obvious question how
▶ 1:50:51can we possibly legislate to protect Americans online when the FTC the cops on the beat of enforcing Federal competition and consumer protection laws lacks its independence what does it mean for independent governance if the ftc's cting Commissioners can be arbitrarily fired by a capricious president and while we talk about President Trump's illegal attempt to block dedicated consumer protectors from
▶ 1:51:21completing from completing their work we must also acknowledge the precarious environment in which FTC employees are currently doing their work president Trump's illegal attempt to fire commissioner Slaughter and bedoya adds further uncertainty to a work culture Laden with looming fears of mass layoffs and forced relocations preserving the ftc's independence while increasing its capacity should be a goal shared by every member of this
▶ 1:51:51committee committee especially if we hope to pass meaningful legislation to protect consumers and online commissioner Slaughter I only have one question for you today and you can take the entire balance of the time to answer it how important is a strong and independent FTC for watch dogging online harms especially threats to privacy thank you excuse me it's critically
▶ 1:52:21important it is critically important there is not another Federal agency that is doing this work there is not a substitute for the FTC in terms of policing the world's most powerful corporations um and policing them without fear or favor I think there's also no substitute for the FTC in terms of the work we do to provide transparency and accountability through our Market studies through our research program through our testimony to Congress um that is work that I have been so
▶ 1:52:51honored to first as a minority commissioner then as a majority commissioner now as a minority commissioner again I've seen all sides of it and I've seen the real benefits that the American people get from having a balance of perspectives on the FTC the way Congress designed and the way the Supreme Court upheld almost a 100 years ago well thank you for your service I youel back I think the G lady now I recognize uh the I miss C
▶ 1:53:22miss cam my Florida uh fellow Florida Gator I'll recognize her for five minutes of questioning well thank you Mr chairman and thank you to our Witnesses for being here today as we examine the many dangers that exist in what some have rightly called the wild west of the internet today's hearing the worldwide web examining harms online could not be more timely from exploitation to manipulation we know that the internet has become a breeding ground for serious threats especially to those most vulnerable
▶ 1:53:52our kids I want to begin by personally apologizing to the parents and the guests here in the committee room today for the behavior of some of colleagues uh we are here to focus on kids and the issue at hand not play liberal catchphrase talk about food prices or talk about billionaires anything that deviates from that is politically motivated and it is disgusting and I am so sorry that you are
▶ 1:54:23in this room championing this issue because you have had an an experienced tragedy in your family I am so very sorry and I hope that my colleagues will apologize for me personally I want to focus on the most disturbing and deeply personal harms facing some of some people online I don't want to talk about employment status from a former commissioner I want to talk about the kids that are facing these
▶ 1:54:53tragedies so I'm going to start with you miss Hawkins online platforms are fueling the Wildfire spread of non-consensual intimate images including the AI generated deep fakes which have been talked about here today there is zero accountability do you believe that Congress should hold these platforms liable and I'm using the word liable deliberately when they knowingly allow this kind of harmful content to stay up and what kind of enforcement tools do we have in our toolbox because there is in fact more than one
▶ 1:55:23so for the record would you please describe I'll I'll say that if we upload a clip from Disney a Disney movie it's removed immediately by big Tech but if sexual abuse is uploaded the most horrific moments in our lives are uploaded to the Internet it's monetized and it Garners thousands of views and downloads and shares there's so much that we can do but as long as Tech has no incentive to listen to survivors
▶ 1:55:54to remove this material we will see no change the take it down act would do that significantly but so too would sunsetting CDA 230 this committee almost called for that last year the problem right now is Tech is not coming to the table we must have them at the table to negotiate and figure out the right solution I agree with you and I'm disappointed to hear that all of a sudden one side is uh against big Tech when all along this has been a bipartisan
▶ 1:56:25issue we have seen conservatives censored online we have seen Progressive voices censored online there has been a collective call for reform with the big tech companies and this is another example where we can come together in a bipartisan way in this case to protect our kids especially online and Beyond the FTC because there seems to be a a lot of focus on former commissioner Slaughter's employment status can you talk about the the FTC
▶ 1:56:55but also the partners in order to enforce how we go about holding the companies accountable taking the content down how do we help give our survivors and the victims resources I'm not an expert on the FTC but what from what I understand and I've seen is we don't have the laws on the books right now for us to to protect Children online it's not strong enough Congress must act right now we need you know
▶ 1:57:25there's so there's so much to say to that one thing I want to transition and and explain too is the app stores right now you know that's the Gateway almost all of our youth the content that they're consuming is through the app stores we can see such significant progress if we just make them accountable to and provide parental opportunities absolutely and I think the there is a coalition of apps that are are working on this and other issues in the periphery which will be
▶ 1:57:55very beneficial um I want to jump to the state laws that are currently on the books and we know that as every state continues to add the laws it becomes this Patchwork deal where Congress will be forced to act and and we do need to act and I agree with the chairman that yes we will take action um and we are willing to go it alone if need be because this is the right thing to do for parents for families and for kids but almost every state currently has laws on the books today um that protect people from non-consensual imagery but 20
▶ 1:58:26states are now only covering deep Fe deep fake specifically now given that talk about at what point is the Tipping Point for Congress to step in the reality is that those laws largely only focus on the initial creation and upload of the material and what we know is immediately once this material is uploaded again thousands of views maybe within hours countless downloads and and there it's quite ineff ient Congress brings efficiency here and we need we need
▶ 1:58:56more you know energy and we need a solution that holds the tech companies to that forces them to listen to us when this is happening to us well and I know my time has expired so um I will yield but I also say thank you for being here in the face of threats to stand up for kids and for families thank you thank you we all thank you all right next we have uh the let's see who's who's next on the Democrat side Miss Dingle there she is okay Singo you recognized for five minutes of questioning thank you Mr chairman I
▶ 1:59:26want to start by saying thank you to all of the witnesses who I have worked with for a long time before I ever got to Congress and like all of my colleagues both sides of the aisle we are horrified by the fact that there were death threats uh I do not like the normalizing of violence or bullying or anything we're seeing and we're here today because we are fighting that and when I look at the parents you need to know people on both sides care
▶ 1:59:56deeply that's why we've been trying for years to get legislation through I have sat with parents my own sister died of suicide I understand that pain and there isn't a member in this room that doesn't care about you and I want to make that really clear and what we really want to do is actually get something done and I need to say that I'm proud to co-lead the bipartisan by camel take it down act which recently passed the Senate
▶ 2:00:26unanimously and for the record was included in the end of the year budget bill before it got killed I won't say who it was because I won't make it partisan but we got to work together because we know this has to get done and my colleagues here have brought up the firing of these two Commissioners because it happened because he didn't like them and we got to be clear here the FTC is an independent agency and
▶ 2:00:56what happened is blatantly unconstitutional and independent agencies are intended to be insulated from political motivations and this is the organization that's supposed to be keeping us safe without a functioning FTC how can we expect to enforce the take a down act if it becomes law and I'm asking every colleague on the other side of the aisle to pledge to work to get this done please we got to stop the politics we got to get it done
▶ 2:01:27how do we go after Bad actors protect consumers and hold platforms accountable the simple answer is we cannot gutting the FTC means gutting our ability to protect kids and online and as artificial technology advances so do new forms of abuse primarily who do they target women and deep fake pornography is being used as a tool for harassment
▶ 2:01:57humiliation and intimidation particularly against women who speak out and advocate for themselves or for children that's what happened to you all today and not a member at this dis thinks that that is okay I want to make that really really clear the take a down act provides victims with a path to Justice ensures these images are removed and holds perpetrators accountable I want to work with all stakeholders
▶ 2:02:28to pass the strongest Bill possible and get this bill across the finish line and I'm begging my colleagues to help me do this if we succeed and passing this important legislation we got to make sure that we've got a body that's going to enforce it so that we don't have women unprotected against this growing threat one of our most important jobs in Congress is to protect people people including from the growing harms online and I'll tell you
▶ 2:02:58it's only getting worse it's just getting worse by the day so commissioner Slaughter let me ask you this question without a fully independent functional FTC do you believe the agency's current Authority is sufficient to effectively enforce the takedown act and hold platforms accountable or do we need to take additional action to strengthen potential enfor ment capabilities thank you uh look I would also like to not
▶ 2:03:28be here talking about my employment status I would like to be here talking about this important work that the FTC has been doing uh and will be doing in the future to address these critically critically important issues for American families um for parents across the country cyber bullying doesn't distinguish between Republicans and Democrats blue States and red States um this is something that affects all of us and that I agree we all need to be working together on um with
▶ 2:03:58respect to specific legislation I think an important role at the FTC has been to take the laws that congress has passed uh to Faithfully administer them and then to go back to Congress if we think something needs to be improved or needs uh or leaves gaps and I think we've had some of those conversations around privacy generally we've had those conversations around Capa if uh the if Congress passes kosa if Congress passes take it down uh you certainly have my commitment to uh Faithfully administer
▶ 2:04:29those laws and let you know if there is more that the FTC needs Mr chairman I'm I'm out of time just let's just pledge to work with each other and get these bills done and these memories these beautiful children here uh the pictures of these beautiful children uh thank you very much for and you are going to make a difference and we are going to work together to get this done okay next we have uh
▶ 2:04:59Mr James my good friend from the state of Michigan you're recognized for five minutes of questioning thank you Mr chairman um this is not a partisan issue uh this is something that we should be able to work together and get done uh I have three young boys uh John's 11 Hudson is 10 in two days and uh Christian is six and uh and my six-year-old when one who watched cartoons saw something nice up on TV a cartoon innocent and he was able
▶ 2:05:30through the App Store on our television to buy Max Max HBO Cinemax showtime and he was able to gain access through that just in a portal it's vital to make sure that we hold our virtual stores to the same standards that we hold our physical stores when it comes to material that is adult or addictive and that is why I'm leading on this app store bill that makes
▶ 2:06:00sure that we continue behind states that are taking the first step by making sure that we have a national accountability act that harmonizes the effectiveness of giving parents the tools to take care of their children the lack of guard rails in the digital app stores defies logic and puts Children at Risk there is simply no good reason why app store should be allowed to cir Convent the same lawful ID checks that brick and mortar stores abide to protect children from assessing age restricted items such as again alcohol
▶ 2:06:30and tobacco in other words we don't rely on marro or Budweiser to ensure kids aren't purchasing their products we look at CVS we look at 7-Eleven we look at the supermarkets to age gate the app ecosystem should be no different than what is currently established in the United States of America these app stores are out of touch and they need to come to reality this is not a partisan issue as I said before this is Common Sense part policy across party lines it's also what parents want it's what parents are demanding parents like us we've seen
▶ 2:07:00similar legislation gaining Steam and picking up momentum around the country other states Alabama Kentucky New Mexico Alaska and other states this is issue is far too important not to get this Bill signed into law in this Congress it's critical that we get this done we get it right uh my first question is for Miss Hawkins clearly the status quo is not working in the current policy framework work around these digital app stores as failing to protect our children what loopholes does this bill Rectify in our current law and can you elaborate on why this bill in your opinion is built to withstand a legal
▶ 2:07:30challenge given the focus on contracts terms of service yes thank you thank you Congressman James right now our children are signing contracts comp complex terms of service agreements with App Store with apps individually every time they download it these contracts allow access to their contact list to their camera to their photo to their exact location and parents often have no idea at all there's no other place in American law where kids are allowed to Pro to sign
▶ 2:08:01contracts and broker into these really intense agreements so that's one loophole another though is the the age ratings parents think that they have given permission to their kids to get access to apps that are appropriate for their age and the entire parental control system on both iOS and Google devices is based on these ages that Google and apple have said yes these are right but we're finding there's the nonpartisan organizations heat initiative and parents together
▶ 2:08:31they just released a report where 200 apps had harmful content our organization has found hundreds going back every year for five years that are rated for foury olds 9y olds 12 year olds and it has sexually explicit content and allows strangers to communicate directly it gives access to location the list goes on unless there's accurate age ratings we as parents can't make the decisions about whether this is appropriate content or material for our kids and the entire system for safety
▶ 2:09:01doesn't even work thank you madam um Miss Slaughter um when were you sworn in I was originally sworn in on May 2nd 2018 May 2nd 2018 and uh you were chairman of the FTC for a small period of time were you not I was the acting chair from January to June of 2021 acting chair of uh June 2021 um I'd asked my colleagues but I'm running low on time um do you recall who was in the majority in Congress
▶ 2:09:32during that time period I believe the Democrats were Democrats were majority in Congress uh do you remember who the president was at that time it was Joe Biden it was Joe Biden Joe Biden's approval rate was 57% yet since 2018 in the 2022 33 kids younger than 13 have died as a result of challenges on Tik Tok Democrats are Furious they're insens they're outraged over these firings but Republicans are outraged by dead babies and child porn
▶ 2:10:03you ever think that maybe you might not have been as good at your job as you thought you were do you think that maybe something should change my colleagues on the left are continuously saying and I believe you said we need to empower the government agencies well what we are here to do is empower the parents because when you Empower parents you give children a chance and we need to try something different than what has failed over the past seven years Mr chairman I yield thank you gentleman yield back and now I recognize Miss
▶ 2:10:33Kelly I Believe Miss Kelly is here no it's me she's not here okay I'm right here oh you're right here I recognize you for your five minutes of questioning first of all I want to thank the witnesses and your detailed um answers I really really appreciate it and I want to thank the parents I know you came to my office and we've spoken before but I am compelled to say I don't need a person here to apologize for me I'm proud of how I carry myself I'm proud of what I do I'm proud
▶ 2:11:03that I'm on the bills that you guys have talked about I am an ally and um also I have three grandchildren and I care about all kids I used to work in a uh child abuse place I don't need anybody saying We Care more about someone's job than we care about kids that is very insulting very insulting Miss Slaughter I'm going to respect you and not talk about how you don't have your job but I want you to talk
▶ 2:11:34about why ideologies and differences make a difference even though it sounds like you guys work together in so many ways in a bipartisan way sure thank you uh I think it is incredibly valuable for congress for the public and most of most importantly for the people that we serve for the FTC to function as Congress designed as a multi-member agency with bipartisan representation with Commissioners who serve
▶ 2:12:04staggered terms over years uh so that we can work with each other learn from each other build towards consensus where it's available um and respectfully disagree with each other where that consensus can't be found those respectful disagreements provide trans transparency and accountability to the public to Advocates to parents uh to hear about what else Congress could be doing what else the FTC could be doing um so I'll talk about a couple of important
▶ 2:12:34cases um in when I was a minority commissioner originally the FTC had a landmark case against Facebook A5 billion settlement of a privacy violation involving how they dealt with uh data including kids data I dissented from that SLE because even though the majority at the time thought that $5 billion was a lot of money I thought it wasn't enough to be effectively deterrent for that company sharing that disagreement publicly helps inform Congress and the American
▶ 2:13:04public about the work of the agency I'll give you another example related to kids another settlement I descended from was the FTC settlement with Google and YouTube over child directed content on YouTube in violation of CA I actually thought the case was good the claims were good I didn't didn't think the settlement got it done because it allowed Bad actors to illegally uh say claim that their content was not child directed and they just had to be trusted about that and all of us who
▶ 2:13:34were concerned about the content our children access online and think we are trying to protect them by using age Gates or using um child directed uh limitations are imperal if those uh those limitations don't actually work and that bad actors can work around them as we've heard some of these other Witnesses talking about today thank you also we've talked uh mostly about um young children but also seniors and other vulnerable
▶ 2:14:05um populations and of course young children also and I I plan to introduce we introduce my protecting seniors from emergency scams act which will help um identify help older adults identify scams and I know hear you about the children because I look at my grandson and some times I've said what is this but the only thing is he does ask his mother has I think scared him to death if he does it so he he does ask first but I have seen some interesting things um on his
▶ 2:14:35phone uh can you talk about um uh the malicious actors and um uh you know if the fgc is significantly weakened because of fired Commissioners and uh people not being there yeah well I think it's pretty clear that corporate law Breakers are in it to make money right they do these things because they are profitable some of the things we've heard about they today are done for even more malign reasons
▶ 2:15:06um but ultimately companies facilitate this law breaking because it is profitable to them to do so um and so our job is to ensure that our focus is on the law that Congress passed in administering those laws without fear or favor and not being cowed by corporate power or corporate profits but instead keeping our focus on the people that we serve um and the independence of the FTC protects it from that kind of political or partisan
▶ 2:15:37uh interference that would inhibit the ability to hold corporate law Breakers accountable thank you very much and thank you for your service and good luck and thanks to all the witnesses again you were really great and thank you to the parents for being here we will get this on lady yields back now I'll recognize Mr Vince for his five minutes of questioning thank you Mr chair and thanks thanks to all all the witnesses for being here today in preparation for this hearing I I looked at the title that said the worldwide web examining
▶ 2:16:08online harms and of course I'm totally supportive of the fact that we are prioritizing kids but I decided I would go back and take a quick look at just how much online time people were spending so I'm sure that all of you are aware of the fact that Americans now spend 7 hours 3 minutes a day each one of us apparently on online excuse me we also I I I looked at the ages I see here from 0 to 8 2.5 hours from 8 to 10 years old 6 hours 11 to 14
▶ 2:16:389 hours 15 to 18 7.5 hours a day so when we talk about what we're going to do about this problem boy is it a big problem a a huge almost insurmountable problem and as I watch uh my kids and others um I note the diminishment of critical thinking the diminish of skills the diminish of self-sufficiency you there's no lack of problems created uh online but I'm happy today that we're talking about
▶ 2:17:08children I that's obviously what we need to be doing M morale uh your attorneys must have looked at this bill is it going to pass Free Speech scrutiny could you specify which bill that well I say that spill I mean the uh the protect our kids Bill the protect our kids bill yeah the the one we've been talking about the entire time today oh take it down or take it down oh take it down yeah take it down forgive me um to pass Free Speech concerns um I believe it it would um this
▶ 2:17:38this is just trying to say that platforms um because in section 230 there's a Good Samaritan provision that incentivizes platforms and said you will be protected from liability for removing content that is obscene lewd lascivious otherwise objectionable but there's been no uh accompanying stick to that carrot and what take it down would would say is that platforms cannot host content if they are contacted knowingly that is non-consensual imagery and they need to remove
▶ 2:18:08that and so I think it well within the authority of the government to do that so in anticipation of this hearing I I went and and of course researched the take it down bill and looked at some of the critical comments on it it appears that there are questions that have been raised by various commentators about it and I think we heard uh Congressman overaly reference the fact that it's not a perfect bill I we we want this bill to to survive so I hope you've reached out and S whatever suggestions you have or anybody on the panel that we
▶ 2:18:38should change this bill please tell us because in looking at the history of everyone trying to get this done obviously First Amendment issues are going to come up uh why why I'm asking you questions uh your testimony touches on the limits of some content filtering tools available I take it these things are not effective tell me tell me why yes so content filters have not been effective in the smartphone app-based ecosystem because often filters do not have access to the material inside of apps and so pornography
▶ 2:19:09today is not restricted to pornography websites it's on social media itself and as I mentioned in my opening often social media is the first entry point for kids and they don't they're not meaning to to access it but they stumble upon a link and they click on it and because there's no age gating on these porn sites they're immediately able to get through to Pornhub and so the filters are not working it's very difficult they often don't filter the inapp browsers that each individual application actually has its own portal to the internet and so it's been a incredibly
▶ 2:19:40difficult problem for parents on their own and so that's why I've been supportive of solutions like age verification that would actually require the POR insights to verify this person is an adult before letting a child through um because filters are just not working for parents and the technology has changed over the last 20 years that has made it extremely difficult for filters to work I want to move back to a a much more difficult issue that's section 230 so I was on Judiciary until I had the Good Fortune of of being selected for this particular
▶ 2:20:10committee and I I must say uh in the days and weeks I spent studying section 230 it appeared to me uh hugely challenging to change it do you have some suggestions on how we might actually do that um a couple quick suggestions um I would say one critical thing would just be to um clarify that um section 230 does not apply to product design um to the company's own wrongdoing or their own algorithms is their product I think that has been an issue that we've seen of lawsuits
▶ 2:20:40getting thrown out in court claiming section 230 immunity when it was not the speech the platform was hosting of third parties but it was actually the product design of those platforms Al algorithms connecting sex traffickers to their victims or promoting blackout challenges into the feed of a 10-year-old girl who then took her life by accident and so I think it's really important to clarify section 230 was not meant to cover product design I would also say a bad Samaritan carve out to say that if you are knowingly hosting criminal content or criminal
▶ 2:21:10behavior on your website you do not get to hide behind section 230's immunity to accompany the Good Samaritan provision we need a kind of commensurate bad Samaritan out for knowingly hosting criminal material thank you yield back very much and thank you for making those suggestions uh if we have any constitutional concerns we want to make sure that we fix them now because ultimately we got to get this through so uh to protect our kids
▶ 2:21:41so thank you very much I appreciate it and uh next we're going to ask Miss Clark uh she has five minutes for question question we you're recognized good afternoon and thank you Mr chairman thank you ranking members chowski and thank you to our Witnesses for being here to testify uh and to commissioner uh badya who is also in attendance thank you for your hard work and dedication to the people of the United States I find it disingenuous
▶ 2:22:11to convene this hearing on protecting children from online harms while Donald Trump dismantles the very agency that Congress created to protect consumers including children having said that where there is a will there is a way and we uh have to determine whether in fact there is a will for decades the FTC has provided Clarity for businesses and consumers protecting the American public from deceptive or unfair practices and unfair methods of competition
▶ 2:22:41president Trump's attempted illegal firing of the democratic FTC Commissioners is a continuation of the administration's anti-consumer agenda that promotes scams deceptive practices and cost Americans lives and money I'm curious how Mr Trump and my Republican colleagues think this unlawful attempt furthers the mission of the FTC to protect the public from deceptive or unfair business practices and from unfair methods of competition through law enforcement
▶ 2:23:12advocacy research and education it's also no coincidence that the Trump's project 2025 went as far as to question question if the FTC should quote continue to exist end quote so having said that with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence consumers are faced with the increasingly acute potential harms of algorithmic discrimination facial recognition technology is a clear example of a tool powered by AI that time and
▶ 2:23:42time again has been prone to unjustified bias particularly against members of communities of color in 2023 the FTC took action against Right Aid to address the company's harmful misuse of biased AI tools and for years hundreds of R Aid stores use facial recognition technology to identify consumers it deemed likely to engage in shoplifting and alert store employees to their presence according to the FTC employees acting on false positive alerts
▶ 2:24:13followed consumers around in its stores searched them ordered them to leave called the police to confront or remove consumers and public accuse them sometimes in front of friends and family of shoplifting and other wrongdoing also according to the FTC R AIDS actions disproportionately impacted people of color it is nothing new that AI can prove can often prove inaccurate and fail to properly identify people especially when it comes to race age or
▶ 2:24:43gender r a not only failed its customers by refusing to notify patrons of the use of biometric surveillance but they also failed to test its own program for accuracy before deploying it the role the FTC played in holding Right Aid accountable cannot be overlooked this is just an example and we must acknowledge the importance of a bipartisan FTC and properly protecting consumers without a bipartisan FTC consumers will lose their
▶ 2:25:13Advocate to obtain re recourse when they've been taken advantage of by so commissioner Slaughter what concerns do you have about the ftc's ability to address harmful discriminatory Behavior moving forward without consultation from the Democratic Commissioners thank you congresswoman I'm very concerned about the ftc's ability to execute all of its Mission including the important parts of our mission
▶ 2:25:43that address uh new emerging Technologies and how they're deployed in the marketplace uh the law requires that that deployment be free of unfair or deceptive acts and practices uh and we need to be able to have robust bipartisan conversations about how those laws are being executed you mentioned the Right Aid case that's an important one another important one is the snap case where AI chat Bots um actually can't get into the specific details of the case because the
▶ 2:26:13fact of it was made public but not the uh not the details but it was a case where the FTC referred very serious concerns about the use of AI chatbots to the Department of Justice um and there is bipartisan debate and also by partisan agreement about these issues that debate makes us stronger it makes the work better it makes it more durable and I think that that's true whether I serve in the minority or in the majority um it's the uh fact of having a
▶ 2:26:43diverse set of viewpoints to inform the work of the FTC that allows that work to be both effective and let me uh thank you for all your hard work and dedication so the parents in room your loss is not um lost on us and I have been battling in this committee for many years around the fact that we have allowed um no guard rails to be placed around the uh the the the the technologies
▶ 2:27:14that our children are being exposed to I understand that my time has been finished I did want to say to you where there is a will time exped and we will get lady's time is expired the chair recognizes representative from Indiana representative howchin thank you Mr chairman uh I also want to thank chairman Guthrie subcommittee chair bacus and all the staff who worked hard to make this hearing possible I especially want to thank the witnesses uh for being here today and apologize to you for
▶ 2:27:44what you've had to go through in the last several hours uh it is unfair and um disappoint pointing uh while I'm new to this committee I am not new to these issues I am a parent uh of two daughters who are now young adults and a son who's a teenager and they have grown up surrounded by social media and immersed in the digital world and as a parent I want to directly respond to miss Hawkins I have experienced everything that that you mentioned with uh you know
▶ 2:28:14the the failures in the protections that are supposed to be in place uh Apple devices having confusing parental controls Roblox claiming that people cannot message your children and access your children when they can snapmap and also YouTube kids uh which which my son when he was very young uh I thought was protected because it's YouTube kids and he was on the app so long that it turned into something that he shouldn't have seen we tried everything every protection
▶ 2:28:45possible we had parental uh apps that like custodio that are supposed to protect kids from some of these things but one of the things that happens in these circumstances is even as parents if we are as Vigilant as possible they can still go to other kids devices and access these apps and um we cannot monitor them 100% of the time my daughter found a work around um to to stay on her phone um so I am very grateful we're having this hearing today and I want to make special recognition of the parents
▶ 2:29:15that are here in the audience um and I want to apologize to you for the things that are being taken away from this conversation not being focused on uh protecting children but instead on someone someone's job at the FTC I think that's completely unfair I was also stopped in the hallway by a reporter who only wanted to ask me about the FTC I did not comment because this hearing today is about protecting kids a follow-up question was asked and I said I am not commenting because this
▶ 2:29:45hearing today is about protecting kids and shame on the media if the only thing they cover from today is the FTC because children are dying and parents need to hear this information um I'm new to the committee and at today's hearing the core is protecting kids I do want to recognize Mason Bogard Mason bogard's memory is with us today Mason's mother Joanne sent me a powerful letter that I want to read a portion of my 15-year-old son Mason was our youngest of three children he enjoyed
▶ 2:30:15playing his drums and entertaining his friends and family with his witty humor he had just started his first job at a landscape business and was excited to start driver Zed he enjoyed everything about the outdoors including camping hiking and his love of fishing he liked watching videos online to learn how to make new fishing lures and master his woodworking skills he was a child of God and knew he was loved by his family and friends what I want to you to know is that Mason was living a healthy and well balanced lifestyle as a typical teen
▶ 2:30:46Mason is no longer with us as a result of the choking challenge and I think of Mason every time we discuss these issues his story stays with me and so does the challenge coin that his mother gave me which I keep as a reminder of what we're fighting for sadly Mason story is not unique Anna Le shot was exposed to extremely graphic videos and images on platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram so graphic that she even witnessed a live suicide being streamed that experience had a devastating
▶ 2:31:16impact on her mental health and ultimately led to her taking her own life in November of 2020 Becca schmill died at 18 after unknowingly purchasing fentanyl laced cocaine online her mother traces Becca's struggles back to trauma that was facilitated by social media sexual assault cyber bullying and easy to access dangerous drugs then there's Walker Montgomery Walker was the victim of a hor horrific sex tortion scheme he was blackmailed after unknowingly participating
▶ 2:31:46in a sexual encounter that was secretly recorded by someone pretending to be someone else the perpetrators demanded $1,000 or they would release the footage to his friends and family he tragically took his own life these are real kids real families real tragedies these are complex issues with legal and Regulatory implications but we should not uh it shouldn't be so complex that we don't achieve our shared goal which is to protect kids
▶ 2:32:17meeting with parents like Joanne and those who loved Anna Lee Becca and Walker is both heartbreaking and motivating these families have turned unimaginable grief into a mission to help prevent other tragedies every time I meet with them I'm reminded why this work matters uh and I am proud to be a champion for them Mr chairman I don't have any questions I yield back thank you the chair recognizes the gentleman from California Mullen
▶ 2:32:48thank you Mr chair thank you all for being here I want to begin by re reiterating that the bills and approaches discussed here today to protect our children online would fall to the FTC to enforce Congress established the FTC as an independent agency with a clear mandate to protect consumers from unfair deceptive and fraudulent practices for 90 years the president has not been able to fire an FTC commissioner without Just Cause And yet today we find ourselves a weak removed from the attempted unlawful
▶ 2:33:18firings of two FTC Commissioners by the president beyond that the chair of the FTC has gone along with Elon mus Doge operation and dismissed a number of FTC employees with probationary status also without cause I'm having a hard time figuring out why anyone on either side of the aisle would want this if the FTC is no longer an independent agency and if it no longer has the resources it needs to actually get the work done then what are we even doing here I am deeply concerned about a roll
▶ 2:33:48back of some of the strong Consumer Protection work that the FTC has done over the last several years much of it was bipartisan but some of it particularly some of the work done during the last few months of the Biden Administration was passed on a strictly partisan basis an order to address a breach of driving location data by a major car company a referral of a Consumer complaint against uh snap to the Department of Justice an order to prevent location-based targeted advertising without user consent a new
▶ 2:34:18click to cancel rule that prevents unfair business practices and enables consumers to more easily unsubscribe from recurring charges despite the clear benefits to Consumers of all of this work none of these initiatives were supported by the other two Commissioners who at least for now remain in their position so commissioner Slaughter uh as I understand it you'll be challenging the president's attempts to unlawfully fire you and commissioner vya as well uh while that challenge is underway
▶ 2:34:49will the two other Commissioners undo all of this progress I cited how does your attempted firing impact the ftc's legitimacy Authority and role and what does that mean for American consumers businesses thank you I think at the moment it's really unclear what happens to any FTC action as you noticed as you noted um we haven't been in a position like this in over 90 years so there's a lot we don't know about what happens um and what concern ears
▶ 2:35:19me is that throws work even work that I would agree with into question the last thing I voted on um before the president tried to fire me was a 40 challenge to a medical device merger um that would raise the cost of Health Care even further there's a lot of things that I agree on with my Republican colleagues um and that's work that is done best on a bipartisan basis there are also good things that that I think the agency has done that they don't support um it has always been clear to me that they might try to
▶ 2:35:50undo some of the progress that I think we made in the last Administration and they are entitled to do that as a majority um but they need to get the votes to do that and they under the law need to do that in the face of the transparency and accountability that Minority votes would provide and that is helpful to Congress and to the American public and commissioner uh in your uh prior testimony you've outlined several examples of the FTC enforcing Online safety can you expand
▶ 2:36:20on the steps taken over the last four years to bring more technologists into the agency um how is this expertise being um undermined by the administration's actions and uh what impact will this have on the ftc's ability to investigate and protect consumers Online safety moving forward in your opinion I think one of our big accomplishments during the last Administration was setting up the office of Technology the FTC was created by
▶ 2:36:50Congress to be a body of independent experts and we've long relied on the expertise of economists and others um we chair con set up an office of technology and built it out with really expert technologist who can inform our research work our casework um and and Report out to the public about technological Trends and that's enormously valuable um that office is much smaller now than it was even two months ago I couldn't give you uh the exact numbers but it is substant stantially smaller
▶ 2:37:20and I worry that that critically important expertise is being limitated being limited by some of the uh broader Cuts we're seeing across the government well commissioner I'd like to thank you for your service which is not over and for your continued efforts to protect our children and American consumers so thank you and with that Mr chair you'll back thank you the chair recognizes gentleman from South Carolina congress thank you Mr chairman for for having this hearing today thank you uh to the witnesses the parents in the room who are
▶ 2:37:50here who have traveled far The Bravery Miss Hawkins of dealing with the the the stuff that you dealt with yesterday with the death threats um I I think that there's no place in this and I'm going to go off the reservation a little bit here and that there is a reason why Democrats are viewed by the American people at an all-time low is because they can't keep the main thing the main thing we are here today to be clear 100%
▶ 2:38:20everyone knew the assignment when we got into this hearing room ahead of time we are here to talk about children safety online and all I hear from the other side is rantings and ravings about the FTC if you want to talk about the FTC go do a one minute speech on the house floor you want to talk about the FTC have a press conference here will the gentleman Y no I'm not this is my time here we are here to talk talk about
▶ 2:38:52children but they can't seem to get it and that's why they're viewed deeply unpopular by the American people right now in fact the witness from the FTC spent four of her five minutes talking about how she was fired and not the actual subject while we're here so that's frustrating to me that there's broad bipartisan consensus on a lot of this stuff we're here to examine that on ways that we can advance sensible policy Miss Hawkins you talked about somebody from South Carolina Mr Guffy who's a state representative and his son Gavin who was
▶ 2:39:22involved in a sextortion scheme and I'm glad that law enforcement is is doing something about it now but that doesn't replace his son and so what can we do as policy makers up here there's a lot um sextortion AI generated abuse uh and imagery um online platforms turning a blind eye these are all things uh that we recognize the danger is real and it's accelerating what we have now miss Soros your testimony highlighted an astounding 1325
▶ 2:39:52increase in AI generated child sexual abuse material what are the challenges of law enforcement in identifying those under the current under the current scheme identifying and distinguishing AI generated images from real victims thank you for the question that is a challenge both for nickm that has a child victim identification program that works closely with law enforcement and and obviously all law enforcement agencies that are when they see an image of um the sexual abuse of a child they often do not know where that child is they need to identify
▶ 2:40:23that child they need to locate that child there's a lot of work that goes into that now that we have ai generated imagery and you know I'm told by the analysts at at Nicki that the uh the technology is so good now that it is very very difficult to distinguish it was easier six months ago a year ago but now it is very difficult to distinguish between an image that is AI generated of a child being sexually abused and an actual image of a child being sexually abused so what we have is a flood of imagery some that is I'll call it fake
▶ 2:40:53but it's a digital forgery and some that is a real child who might be in an actively abusive situation and law enforcement and again and Nicki in our support role have to somehow decipher which are the real children so we we Face the real danger that somebody will spend time trying to identify a child who simply does not exist it is an AI generated child while a real child currently in an abusive situation waits in the queue you think legisl could properly address that that U that that challenge that
▶ 2:41:23we have I I think it could again if we look especially Upstream so that we can prevent this technology from even being allowed to create that imagery to begin with thank you for that M Morel um you know tech companies knowingly designed addictive platforms uh and evade meaningful age verification your testimony talked about that in your view what specific legal requirements Beyond just parental uh controls should Congress uh evaluate to stop the cycle of explo um exposure and exploitation yeah
▶ 2:41:53so I will say um I I'm on the extreme end I would kind of plant my flag in the ground on saying I think Congress should seriously consider that the environment and the underlying design of social media is so harmful to Children it should actually be age restricted out of childhood the default age for social media has been 13 but not because of a specific Law related to social media but because of CA passed in 1996 before social media even existed about data collection and so I think we really need an updated legal
▶ 2:42:23regime that really tries to delay social media as far as possible because if you talk to parents almost every parent says I wish that my child wasn't on social media but I feel compelled to let them on these apps because every one of their friends is on it and that to me is a classic Collective action problem that the government has a very critical role to play in solving where then each individual parent doesn't have to face that battle on their own we can say like alcohol or tobacco or even operating Firearms or driving cars Technologies we've recognized
▶ 2:42:53are just too powerful for a child to handle I think we're seeing that in the in the in the way social media has even changed over time how aggressive the algorithms are that the entire nature and environment it creates and the underlying design is not a place for children thank you for that Mr chairman before I yield I want to enter three articles into the record about Mr Guffy and his fight uh from various uh um uh periodicals in South thank you so much okay uh the gentleman
▶ 2:43:24yields back Miss shrier Dr shrier you're recognized for five minutes of questioning thank you Mr chairman and thank you to all the witnesses for being to here today uh thank you for the parents for being here today and special thank you to Commissioners Boya and Slaughter for being here today um oh Al also thanks Mr Fry for lecturing PD nutrition about caring for children but not for your leadership and blocking our
▶ 2:43:54bill that protects children uh amen M Morel uh I have a 16-year-old and he has forbidden from downloading any social media on his phone so we are here today to talk about Online safety for children it's an issue I care deeply about that I've been working on for years and as a pediatrician I have seen the negative effects that unfettered screen time and social media has had on children in fact I witnessed in my own practice the Steep rise in depression
▶ 2:44:24and anxiety and eating disorders that absolutely paralleled the rise in social media use by kids I even had a patient who had to change school districts twice because of online bullying and it followed her so this is one reason I've been such a champion for cracking down on the way social media companies abuse children like privacy violations algorithms that keep them addicted and a lack of protection from abuse by others and it's the reason that I'm particularly frustrated that
▶ 2:44:54Republican leadership blocked the kids online safety act from even coming to the floor for a bipartisan vote um but there's an elephant in the room as we've heard today president Trump has fired the only two Democratic Commissioners at the FTC these firings upend nearly a century of precedent uh through this illegal attempt to fire them uh commissioner Slaughter and Bor have championed and enforced the protection of children on social media platforms and this is the
▶ 2:45:25commission that holds big Tech accountable it's also the commission that uh protected consumers last year by preventing the merger between Kroger and Albertson which would have jacked up prices in the grocery stores even more so the FDC is one of the most important independent agencies in our government and an agency that was commissioned by Congress to be independent bipartisan and with terms administrations but I fear that without two Democratic
▶ 2:45:55Commissioners a partisan FTC might withdraw from its mission in this political environment with an emboldened executive branch that has been quite successful in bending Republicans to his will uh this Administration has clearly aligned itself with big big Tech front row seats at the inauguration but rather than with the American consumers so commissioner Slaughter I am nearly last uh to speak today and um I just want
▶ 2:46:25to give you uh first of all thanks for enforcing our laws um but second I'd like to just give you the platform for the next two minutes to talk about anything you would like that you either want to reiterate or have not had time to address today thank you I feel like I've had a lot of opportunity to share my perspective but I think the most important thing that I haven't had a chance to say is um it really is not about me
▶ 2:46:55or about commissioner bedya we love our agency we love our jobs we want to do it but um I could be very happy spending time with my four kids uh and trying to police their social media use unsuccessfully more um but what I care about and what commissioner bedya cares about is the Integrity of the work of the agency precisely because because of the people who are sitting in this room today um I feel he feels very very driven
▶ 2:47:26to make sure that government and the institutions that Congress has designed are working for parents like those behind us and for every other parent so they don't have to be in that position going forward it is so important it's not about being a Democrat it's not about being in the minority um it would be true throughout the commission's history I think it's important to have have a variety of voices and a variety of perspectives as Congress designed precisely because these issues that
▶ 2:47:56the FDC is tasked with handling are so important to the American people um and I care incredibly deeply about them and I want that work to continue I've heard so much common ground with uh my fellow Witnesses today and so much shared concern that I have with them about the way technology today is operating outside the bounds of what the law is and also what the law should be and we want to make sure that the focus of the agency
▶ 2:48:27is on protecting those kids and protecting those families thank you commissioner thank you uh to our witnesses to the parents here today and that is the whole point um to offer our condolences and make sure this does not happen to any other child or parent I yeld back generated yield back now we'll recognize Miss Laura Lee for her five minutes of questioning thank you Mr
▶ 2:48:57chairman for convening this important hearing and I also express my gratitude to each of our Witnesses for being here today and sharing your important testimony with us so during the last Congress I had an opportunity to work on legislation related to protecting children most notably the report act and was fortunate to partner with number of the groups that are represented here today in in crafting that policy and I look forward to continuing our work together on
▶ 2:49:27protecting kids online here in this committee as our committee explores legislation such as Kaa we Face the task of ensuring that we are making the right decisions and keeping our children safe your input and your testimony as you've heard today is so valuable to us drafting legislation and getting it right Miss Morel as you noted um I thank you for being here and for sharing your expertise and your thoughtful insight about these challenges
▶ 2:49:57and as you noted it has been many years since Congress enacted privacy protections for Children online and in those years technology has evolved and outpaced the protections that we have currently in place I am eager to work on CA with representative caster and Walberg uh to improve protections for minors in a way that is in keep keeping with the threats we face in the 21st century now one thing I want to touch on specifically is the targeted ads so as they relate to adults those can
▶ 2:50:28sometimes be helpful in retail and other applications they can sometimes be something that is a benefit to the consumer but for targeted ads as they relate to Children uh and young people will you explain to us why that practice in particular is harmful yes it's extremely harmful because children are not don't have the maturity that an adult has um to be able to make decisions for themselves and to um discern truth um from false false claims and so I
▶ 2:50:58think it's really dangerous that um these businesses are allowed to Target ads to children in ways that then they they feel compelled then that they should buy this product and they're not Discerning and so I think it's it's a really predatory practice and on that note uh in your testimony you identify how big Tech continues to recruit Young and younger users to their platforms and you were just speaking with representative fry about your view that uh we really ought to just
▶ 2:51:28restrict access to these platforms to a higher age tell us a little bit more about your thoughts on that subject yes um so I think that the the nature of social media today is not a safe place for children I think like example after example has shown that the environment created by the product design the way that algorithms work the kinds of material it promotes which is often the most Sensational or violent or explicit material is what gets promoted into children's feed
▶ 2:51:58have made it an extremely unsafe place as well as the metrics are designed to incentivize um children to even post sexual images of themselves and it has normalized a lot of the practices that we're talking about why are teens creating deep fake pornography because the environment and nature of the online world is extremely sexualized and violent and so it is not a safe place for children and I've said this before but the same way that in the real world we don't take children to bars or strip
▶ 2:52:28clubs and then try to blindfold them there we just don't take them to those places and I think social media has gotten to that point today that unless the business model vastly changes it is not a safe environment for children nor is it a safe substance because as we've seen brain study show it acts on the sub on the brain like highly addictive drugs and so for both those reasons I think the precedent in our laws tell us to age restricted out childhood and Miss Hawkins uh one of the things that you have emphasized is the vulnerability of young teens
▶ 2:52:58who are not protected after the age of 13 under our current scheme uh would you like to speak on this as well and how you think that should change thank you well one of the problems with Kappa originally passed is that it set the digital age inadvertently set the digital age of adulthood at 13 and even though it was focused on PR privacy big Tech has just run away with this idea and they've literally I mean one time I met with Google 10 years ago I walked out of the meeting with Google and
▶ 2:53:28we were talking about you know filters for 13 14 15 year olds and they said why would we want to block pornography from a 14-year-old they're adults at that age and that is when I realized the impact of creating this digital adulthood age and I just asked there's so much good in CA 2.0 there's so much good and we need it but I also ask that we not further cement this idea that we're digital adults at that age and that parents are not needed thank you Mr chairman I yield back thank
▶ 2:53:58you I thank the general lady now we have uh Mr VC uh you're recognized sir for your five minutes a questioning um thank you Mr chairman and I want to thank the um Witnesses for being here today I think that we've learned a lot today that blocking uh bills like Copa and other things that are that protect our kids is bad uh and that we shouldn't be doing that and so I appreciate your comments um uh today and you sharing some of those things um I also wanted to talk very briefly about um the attempted removal of two minority
▶ 2:54:29Commissioners uh from the FTC and how I think that that is really bad for the things that we're trying to accomplish here today to protect our children and other consumers uh as this agency has a very long history of doing uh it's unconstitutional it's wrong uh and uh and that is the type of thing that could really further w our kids and our teenagers lives and that's not what we want I think that that's one thing that we've heard from the panel is that we don't want things that are going to make it harder for our young people
▶ 2:54:59we want to protect them and we can't do that if we're going to try to undermine the Constitution um commissioner Slaughter I wanted to ask you uh you have a very strong record for advocating for Consumer Protections with on and with ongoing supply chain disruptions and shifting tariff policies I really worry that unfair and deceptive business uh practices are going to be on the horizon uh how does President TR Trump's attempt to remove you uh and the
▶ 2:55:29other commissioner from the minority impact the Federal Trade commission's ability to hold corporations uh and people that want to hurt our kids uh and other consumers who things like price gouging accountable thank you Congress designed the FTC over 100 years years ago 111 years ago uh and set it up to be a bipartisan agency made up of members from both parties who serve staggered terms
▶ 2:55:59because Congress understood that that was a really important way to ins insulate the work of the FTC from uh corrupting influences from partisanship um and from political interference over the time I've served at the FTC our staff have gone up against some of the most powerful companies in court they've done that supported by Commissioners from both parties um because we understand that Our obligation is to enforce the
▶ 2:56:29law without fear or favor um that is based in the design of the FTC that Congress set up uh and I'm very concerned that my attempted removal not only eliminates the bipartisan voices that Congress intended but it also sends a message to the majority Commissioners that they too could be removed at a whim if they're not willing to take action that uh may be a favor to some of these big big companies
▶ 2:56:59the most powerful companies in the world um and and that's really concerning if what we want what we all want I think is for the focus of the administration of the law to be on the American people the children the consumers the workers and honest businesses that's scary because that's almost a type of thing that you hear of in a communist country um commissioner Slaughter also I know as the nation's uh top um privacy enforcer uh that you guys want to protect
▶ 2:57:29uh Americans data their personal data uh and data again that could be kid and I think everybody on this panel seems to express an interest in helping kids especially uh and that kids can have data uh all of us can and I wanted to ask you with data breaches On The Rise and targeted adver ements uh constantly uh testing the limits of consumer privacy uh how does your attempted removal uh and the other Commissioners uh attempted removal weaken the ftc's
▶ 2:58:00ability to protect users on line and do you see this as part of a broader effort to undermine the agency's independence yeah I'm very worried about it uh the FTC has conducted a study on social media and video streaming services data collection and use practice practices I mentioned it a little bit earlier it started under the first Trump Administration it was the product of a bipartisan effort by myself former commissioner Wilson former commissioner Chopra um we finally released the report last year
▶ 2:58:30and what I didn't get a chance to say is that report talks not only about the way data is collected but also how it's used we've heard a little bit about some of the really disturbing challenges that kids are set up with online we heard about the choking challenge there's been the tide pod challenge the report that we issued talked about the ways in which companies use data to fuel engagement and interest including around things like this that create real material harms for kids that cannot be undone
▶ 2:59:01once it happens it's too late so our job as all of the parents in this audience know is to get ahead of those problems to send clear signals to the market on a bipartisan basis about what conduct is prohibited by the law and how compan bear the burden of following the law and that that needs to be done without fear or favor thank you thank youman appreciate thank the gentleman for yielding back and now we'll recognize Mr
▶ 2:59:31Caine from the great state of New Jersey you're recognized for five minutes of questioning sir thank you Mr chairman and thank you to all of our Witnesses for being here today last Congress following a horrific deep fake incident at a high school in my district I made AI safety a priority I led efforts on the AI laboring act I co-led the preventing deep fakes of intimate images act and I'm co-sponsoring the take it down act we must ensure proper
▶ 3:00:01oversight holding Bad actors accountable and fostering responsibility among AI companies and users while AI safeguards remain critically important another focus is now is expanding towards data privacy concerns particularly on how we protect Americans especially children from online exploitation and data misuse as a congress conc as Federal data to privacy standards today's discussions will help us understand the challenges families face
▶ 3:00:31and the most effective ways to ensure stronger protections moving forward Miss sorus what legal and technological challenges exist in preventing the spread of malicious deep fake pornography and what the role does Congress play in strengthening protections for victims while holding perpetrators accountable thank you for the question Congressman um let me address the technical challenges first I think there is a rush to Market um we are we our country of innovation we saw this when the internet first arose we're seeing this with AI now
▶ 3:01:02there is tremendous competition and pressure to rush products to Market without safety by Design without consideration of how children will interact with these tools and how offenders will misuse these tools so that is I think the primary challenge there also is is really again a lack of safety by Design we've heard that term I think throughout the hearing today it's embedded in several pending bills that I I think will be addressed this term but it it's really the concept of requiring companies before they roll out a you service and you platform and you product to really consider
▶ 3:01:32the dangers to Children again the misuse by offenders um and how a a child might interact with a new technology um and Safeguard those children I think the final issue is again um looking to the Upstream we need to look Upstream on technology in terms of AI uh producers and AI developers we need to help those producers that want to create a self a safe product we need to consider red teaming so they actually have the ability to test that Ai and make sure it's not um available or
▶ 3:02:02able to produce child sexual exploitation material that's a complicated partnership that needs to occur to achieve that um but we need to again look upstream and prevent this this imagery from being uh created in the first place rather than focusing only on criminal or Civ remedies down the road um if I can just uh to address the legal challenges as well so um I don't really think there's um unclear liability around AI companies I think it is clear that they are not protected by section 230 um I do think there's a lack of
▶ 3:02:32clarity around civil and criminal remedies obviously take it down will address the criminal remedies um there have been some uh bills pending in the last term and I expect to see them reintroduced uh this term as well that would address the Civil penalties so again we we really need those those three Avenues um to completely protect children from AI thank you Miss Hawkins is there anything you'd like to add on that I want to add just that behind me sits the young People's Alliance
▶ 3:03:02a group of young people the parents of Matthew and Grace also and we've walked these Halls together asking for Congress to take action and we we joined together again asking asking once more we felt outrage when the kids online safety act when the take it down act when so many of these other bills didn't pass last year and we we just come before you asking for Congress to finally take action thank you thank you Mrs Morel uh what are the key
▶ 3:03:33obstacles preventing parents from effectively utilizing existing Online safety tools and how can Congress address these gaps without infringing on First Amendment rights yes so the current gaps is that the tools made available to parents don't actually parents oversight or insight into what's happening on a child's feed or their direct messages which is where a lot of the sex tortion schemes or predators are gaining access to Children through these messages that parents have no access to and the parental supervision um tools available are
▶ 3:04:03really just to set time limits or certain restrictions on the app but often those restrictions aren't effective and also the teen can cancel this supervision at any time and so it's not really an effective control in that sense and so one what I I've argued and advocated for is really age restricting social media out of childhood as an unsafe substance and dangerous environment for children that would Empower all parents um to be able to protect their kids including this hasn't really been mentioned but um a lot
▶ 3:04:33of children are left unprotected because they don't have involved parents and I think we need to care for America's children across the board whether or not they have involved parents putting those controls in place or not and so that's why I've advocated for solutions that age restricted out of childhood um and the last thing I would say is I think the other way that we hold companies accountable for harms to Children is opening up liability against them and that has largely been blocked because of section 230 and so kosa and other bills like it would try to actually clarify that companies need to be
▶ 3:05:03liable for mitigating objective harms to children in their product design thank you are y back appreciate gentlemen yields back and I now recognize Mr Evans from the great state of Colorado thank you uh Mr chairman to the ranking member to the witnesses for coming today uh and of course to the to the families and to the parents uh who are in the audience um my my first question will be to miss sorus with Nick Mick uh I was a cop for a little over 10 years
▶ 3:05:33so I've personally worked these cases that originated with tips from Nick mck I know the great work that you do and unfortunately I know the truly uh terrible and traumatic events that you often have to monitor and then refer out for investigation um digital alterations revenge porn online bullying AI deep fake sex dation um and the list goes on and on and I think it's critically important to note how horrible and graphic these crimes are um one of the things that I did in law enforcement was peer support
▶ 3:06:03and so that is police officers taking care of other police officers to to to safeguard and Shepherd the mental health of First Responders and some of the highest levels of trauma that we ever see in law enforcement is the crimes against children uh investigators because of just the absolutely brutal and graphic nature of these crimes um and and Nick Mech and the work that you do is at the front lines of being able to identify and refer out for further investigation in this space and so um my my first question to
▶ 3:06:34you comes from something that you had mentioned in your written testimony where we talking about some of the challenges of online digital security with endtoend encryption but how endend encryption also makes it more difficult at times uh to be able to actually identify this and so my question to you is can you speak a little bit about how we can protect online privacy with good encryption but also make sure that that um uh entities like necm have the tools that they need to be able to find interdict and refer out for investigation on some of these
▶ 3:07:04crimes thank you for the question so I think when we are talking about intend encryption and child safety it's a balancing act right like so many other things in our legal system um Nick mck has been uh very public that we support and Ed encryption for Consumer privacy obviously everybody wants their medical their legal um you know their financial information to be protected through strong security measures and then encrypted Etc we've probably all in this room been hacked previously due to a lack of digital security however there has to be a balance regarding child
▶ 3:07:35safety and I feel like this has become a you know a little bit um of of a choice where you have to pick one um at the sacrifice of the other and we simply don't believe that's the case so when you are considering uh child safety considerations um again those are not Financial medical um legal uh concerns that adults are engaging in we are talking about children engaging with adults with offenders on social media um there are platforms there that simply do not need to be
▶ 3:08:05default end to end encrypted children's accounts do not need to be default end to-end encrypted we need to make sure there is visibility and transparency if children are going to be online in those environments so that a company has the ability to detect right this is all about detection if a company cannot see what is going on how an offender is approaching a child what kind of imagery they are soliciting or sending that child we will never get a report at nickm and law enforcement will never get a report to investigate and Save Part a child so we support
▶ 3:08:35balancing using the technology that's available to us excuse me to protect the digital security that an encryption provides while also ensuring that child safety is balanced with that thank you and kind of a follow-up corollary to that uh my home state Colorado unfortunately has the distinction of having the second highest number of teenage overdose deaths as a result of uh illegal drugs being sold and that and we know a lot of times those transactions uh occur through online interactions uh
▶ 3:09:05with kids with juveniles through social media or their apps can you speak a little bit to how the work that nickm has been doing um in the child uh sexual exploitation space uh can we use that as a correl to be able to identify and interdict some of these drug transactions that again are taking thousands and thousands of lives around the country and often times the the um the operating principle that some of these perpetrators use is very similar they use coded language they're trying to evade detection online can you speak to that absolutely and I it's a great
▶ 3:09:35question and an issue that we've discussed with several other groups and and members of Congress as well previously I think there is a corar um you know our cyber tip line which is the receiver of reports relating to child sexual exploitation that we evaluate handle and then send to law enforcement is a good model because it relies on detection by technology companies by online platforms um again based on emojis like you said based on coded language based on Direct solicitations that would be very similar for drugs in many ways as it is for for ccam
▶ 3:10:06or exploitation of children um again having a reporting mechanism that is centralized again for for drug transactions would also facilitate um determining a jurisdiction determining where an offender is where a victim is and allowing law enforcement to pursue their investigation thank you yield back gentleman Yi's back I recognize Mr Coleman from the great state of Texas for five minutes Goldman excuse me Goldman goldmanan it all sounds apologize thank you Mr chairman thank you very
▶ 3:10:36much um Ellison Barry is a constituent of mine and those of you who don't know her uh she was a victim of deep fake Revenge porn um I want to be thankful to her for bravery uh for her coming to the capital during the joint address sitting next to the first lady United States of America thankful to the president for recognizing her in the gallery in front
▶ 3:11:06of millions of Americans um and it's bravely bravery like hers it's bravery like yours coming forward telling your stories the reason we're here today is and and I see some of the families out there in the audience and I see photos can you can you hold those up this is the reason we're here today this is the reason we're here members
▶ 3:11:36thank you for being here thank you for your bravery thank you for telling your story this is what we need to hear because it is about the safety of the children of America that's the reason here and that is why we have to take it down act it's why I'm proud to be a co-sponsor and I look forward to its passage I don't have any questions for yall by the time it gets to me all the questions pretty much have been asked that I wanted to ask I just wanted
▶ 3:12:06to thank y'all very much for being here for telling your story for your bravery and I look forward to the passage thank you Mr chairman I yield back the rest of my time appreciate that very much uh so I believe that's the last presenter we don't have anyone else uh any other members on either side so I I do want to tell you a very productive hearing and uh and I want to thank Miss Dawkins in particular but all of the the witnesses today for
▶ 3:12:36obvious reasons but uh all the witnesses here today and very informative and we all agree on the the issues the subject matter of this hearing uh and in the legislation uh put forward and you know that uh Brett and I chairman gothy uh will make this a priority the fact that we've had an early educational hearing uh shows that these bills are very very important to all of us
▶ 3:13:07I appreciate the audience uh being here today uh and all the Advocates that are advocating on behalf of our children uh we appreciate you all and let's work together uh and and uh you know like I before if there are any concerns with these bills let's get them done early and and then uh if they have any issues um with the Senate what have you
▶ 3:13:37let's hash them out early so we can get this uh this on the president's desk as soon as possible these particular bills the multiple bills not just one bill uh so I want to thank you all and I want to thank uh my ranking member as well yeah she she she would like to say something as well but and then for those members that have stuck to the subject matter of the hearing today I appreciate them as well so uh I'll yield back to
▶ 3:14:08I'll yield back my time and and then also the ranking member will have an opportunity uh I you're recognized thank you Mr yeah sorry thank you Mr chairman I want to thank the witnesses I really appreciate each and every one of you but I also do want to acknowledge the people that are in the audience if you are
▶ 3:14:38in the audience and you had some connection to a problem with Abus of children can you stand if you're in any way connected to your concern about this issue I'd like to see you is there anybody here who actually has lost someone and you can can you
▶ 3:15:08raise your hand yes I see the one yeah thank you very much for being here for taking on this challenge I do want to say that uh particularly to commissioner Slaughter um that while all of these particular issues that we want to deal with I think will be
▶ 3:15:38best served if it is in the context of what the Federal Trade Commission does that um we will be able to um really get down to who are the people who the PE the uh that are hold on that one second there's a phone ringing in my um my my belief
▶ 3:16:09is that um we need to make sure that we have the protection that we need we can't take it for granted and that's why it is very important that uh we actually pass um the legislation that the FTC had done so I am very very grateful I think we are Mr chairman
▶ 3:16:39unanimous in our concern of the urgency of addressing the needs of our children and protecting them that is what this was about today so thank you very much for all of your good work okay very very good I ask unanimous consent that the documents on the staff document list be submitted for the record without objection so ordered I remind members that
▶ 3:17:09they have 10 business days to submit questions for the record and I ask the witnesses to respond to the questions prly members should submit their questions by the close of business on April 9th so without objection again thank you for being here without objection the subcommittee is
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