U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is leading an effort against online child exploitation through a trio of new bills, he announced Tuesday.
Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, and the panel’s chair, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, are co-sponsoring three bills targeting child predators online and on social media.
“Big Tech continues to fail our most vulnerable because they refuse to incorporate safety-by-design measures into their platforms or make meaningful efforts to detect the increasingly violent and depraved sexual exploitation of children on their services,” Durbin said in a statement.
“Congress has spent enough time investigating tech platforms’ failures; it’s now time that we deliver for the American people,” he continued.
Among the bills is the Sentencing Accountability for Exploitation Act. It would require the U.S. Sentencing Commission to develop guidelines to include new aggravating factors related to child sex abuse material, for example if an offender used technology to conceal their identity online.
The Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online Act would prohibit the coercing of children into physically harming themselves. The new federal offense carries a maximum life sentence if the coercion involves the actual or attempted suicide of the victim.
The Stop Sextortion Act, the last of the three bills, would increase the maximum penalty for extorting and coercing children by threatening to distribute sex abuse material from five to 10 years.
Durbin on Tuesday also called on the Senate to pass by unanimous consent the STOP CSAM Act, which he co-sponsored with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.
The bill would allow victims of child sexual exploitation to sue online platforms, like social media companies, that host, store or help distribute child sex abuse material.
The largely symbolic move, which would’ve allowed the Senate to quickly pass the bill with support from all 100 senators, failed after Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon objected. The senator has previously opposed the bill, arguing that it could lead tech companies to weaken or remove encryption services for all users.
Durbin, who has announced he will retire from the Senate next year after five terms, has long made the regulation of Big Tech companies to protect young users a priority.
Last year, the senator summoned the heads of major social media platforms, including Meta, X and TikTok, for a hearing before the Judiciary Committee, which he chaired at the time.
But the effort has drawn ire from civil rights groups, who criticized bills like the STOP CSAM Act for threatening the privacy and security of all internet users.
The issue of online sexual exploitation of children was back in the spotlight after federal prosecutors last week accused a Chicago man of sexually exploiting a 14-year-old girl from the Boston area.
Prosecutors alleged the man posed as a 17-year-old boy and coerced the girl into sending him sexually explicit videos on the social media platform Snapchat.
