As Congress Grandstands Nonsense ‘Kid Safety’ Bills, Senator Wyden Reintroduces Legislation That Would Actually Help Deal With Kid Exploitation Online
from the no-one-will-pay-attention,-because-this-is-useful,-but-boring dept
As you’ve likely heard, this morning the Senate did one of its semi-regular hearings in which it drags tech CEOs in front of clueless Senators who make nonsense pronouncements in hopes of getting a viral clip to show up on the very social media they’re pretending to demonize, but which they rely on to pretend to their base that they’re leading the culture war moral panic against social media.
Meanwhile, Senator Ron Wyden has (yet again) released a bill that will get little (if any) attention, but which actually seeks to help protect children. Reps. Eshoo and Fitzpatrick have introduced the companion bill in the House.
As we’ve discussed multiple times, all evidence suggests that the internet companies are actually doing an awful lot to stop child exploitation online, which involves tracking it down, reporting it to NCMEC, and putting in place tools to automate and block such exploitation content from ever seeing the light of day. The real problem seems to be that after the content is reported to NCMEC, nothing happens.
Wyden’s bill aims to fix that part. The actual part where the system seems to fall down and fail to protect kids online. The part about what happens after the companies report such content, and NCMEC and the DOJ fail to take any action:
The Invest in Child Safety Act would direct more than $5 billion in mandatory funding to investigate and target the predators and abusers who create and share child sexual abuse material online. It also directs substantial new funding for community-based efforts to prevent children from becoming victims in the first place. The legislation would also create a new office within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to coordinate efforts across federal agencies, after the DOJ refused to comply with a 2008 law requiring coordination and reporting of those efforts.
“The federal government has a responsibility and moral obligation to protect children from exploitation online, but right now it’s failing in large part because of a lack of funding and coordination,” Wyden said. “It’s time for a new approach to find child predators, prosecute these monsters, and help protect children from becoming victims in the first place – and that’s why we are introducing the Invest in Child Safety Act.”
The bill includes a ton of pretty clear and obvious common sense approaches to helping deal with the actual crimes going on and to actually step in and protect children, rather than just grandstanding about it and magically pretending that if only Mark Zuckerberg nerded harder, he’d magically prevent child exploitation.
- Quadruple the number of prosecutors and agents in DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section from 30 FTEs to 120 FTEs;
- Add 100 new agents and investigators for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Innocent Images National Initiative, Crimes Against Children Unit, Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Teams, and Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces;
- Fund 65 new NCMEC analysts, engineers, and mental health counselors, as well as a major upgrade to NCMEC’s technology platform to enable the organization to more effectively evaluate and process CSAM reports from tech companies;
- Double funding for the state Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces;
- Double funding for the National Criminal Justice Training Center, to administer crucial Internet Crimes Against Children and Missing and Exploited Children training programs;
- Increase funding for evidence-based programs, local governments and non-federal entities to detect, prevent and support victims of child sexual abuse, including school-based mental health services and prevention programs like the Children’s Advocacy Centers and the HHS’ Street Outreach Program;
- Require tech companies to increase the time that they hold evidence of CSAM, in a secure database, to enable law enforcement agencies to prosecute older cases;
- Establish an Office to Enforce and Protect Against Child Sexual Exploitation, within the Executive Office of the President, to direct and streamline the federal government’s efforts to prevent, investigate and prosecute the scourge of child exploitation;
- Require the Office to develop an enforcement and protection strategy, in coordination with HHS and GAO; and
- Require the Office to submit annual monitoring reports, subject to mandatory Congressional testimony to ensure timely execution.
Of course, doing basic stuff like this isn’t the kind of thing that gets headlines, and so it won’t get even a fraction of the attention that terrible, unconstitutional, problematic bills like KOSA, EARN IT, STOP CSAM and others will get. Indeed, after doing a quick search online, I can find exactly no articles about Wyden’s bill. Dealing with actual problems isn’t the kind of thing this Congress does, nor something that the media cares about.
Having a show trial to pretend that terrible bills are great makes headlines. Actually presenting a bill that provides real tools to help… gets ignored.
Filed Under: anna eshoo, brian fitzpatrick, child exploitation, child safety, doj, funding, ncmec, ron wyden
Companies: ncmec
Comments on “As Congress Grandstands Nonsense ‘Kid Safety’ Bills, Senator Wyden Reintroduces Legislation That Would Actually Help Deal With Kid Exploitation Online”
Sounds like a complete nonstarter for the right wing. They’d rather just kill gays and shoot up pizza parlors that don’t even have basements.
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I suspect that it’s more that and if they went after actual sexual predators rather than just those they accuse of being so the efforts would undoubtedly have an ‘unfortunate’ tendency to scoop up their own members.
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For most of Congress, actually. You see, if the problem was actually fixed, they couldn’t campaign (and fundraise) on it.
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Been hearing that “both sides” shit for a long time. I’m done buying it.
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It is not one party that attempts to pass performative BS that doesn’t actually fix anything. Each party just has different topics or methods they do it with.
Content moderation, for example. Republicans claim to want websites to moderate less, and they want platforms to be liable for overmoderating. Democrats claim to want websites to moderate more, and they want platforms to be liable for undermoderating. But if you look at the bills they submit, they don’t ever offer reasonable, operable solutions. They do, however, make for good press releases and sound bites.
Now, I’m not saying both parties are equally bad overall, but they are both bad, and neither, in general, deserve your vote. Wyden being one possible exception.
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That’s a great way to let the worse party win.
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Sure, if you subscribe to the fallacy that any vote not cast for a Republican or Democrat is a wasted vote.
It would be a common sentiment (advocated by the two major parties, of course, because it’s in their interest to only have one opponent) that any third-party moderate liberal will just take votes away from the Democratic candidate and cause the Republican to win. The idea is backwards though. It’s the Democratic candidate that’s taking votes away from the third-party moderate liberal.
Yes, I realize I’m being idealistic, but maybe we need a little more of that.
AI-generated images don’t count. Should they?
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I believe current jurisprudence is that drawings and the like do not fall afoul of CSAM laws. At the point when AI drawings become indistinguishable from photos, there’s a whole can of worms going to come open.
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For now.
But then again, where the fuck are you getting those images to train your pet random content generator?
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IIRC there was a case where someone used the same technology that is used to age photos of missing children to reverse the age of adults so they appeared as if they were underage. Their defense was the pictures were of legal adults, they had just been manipulated. I believe they lost.
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The controlling Law comes from the (Protect Act from 2003)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003] which to my read puts the nail in the coffin on AI based CSAM.
UNder the Protect Act, CSAM (or CP as it appears in the law refrences I am using) is defined pretty broadly to include any form of visual depiction (Title 18 Section 1466A)[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1466A], but is importantly limited by the definition of CP in 18 US 2556(8). OUtside of real minors being the subject of the image, under 2556(8)(B) it is still CP if the image is “indistiguishable from a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct”.
This might in fact be too broad, but I think law enforcement hasn’t been stupid enough to try to get a illegally young looking adult for this. But its definitely broad enough to capture AI CSAM.
Where did this sanity come from and how can we got more (LOTS more) of it?
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wyden is the only sane politician that cares about anyone
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A progressive Dem, as per usual. There aren’t very many of them, as the Democractic establishment dislikes progressives more than the GOP establishment does.
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“…the Democractic establishment dislikes progressives more than the GOP establishment does.”
Links.
just wondering
How much business has lost Advert money because of the internet?
I know for Broadcast and cable Regulation was passed against Liquor, Tobacco, Condoms and Anything Super Violent or Super SEXY. And Why CARTOONS got edited as it was one of Very few RETROACTIVE regulations.
But as with Cellphones, THERE are Very few Rights and regulations, expressed. But with the internet, HOW do you control the World? How to get Every other nation to MATCH your laws?
Anyone want to Match India’s laws? China? even Japan has some strange ones.
Wyden is probably the best politician that has ever represented me, by a long shot. I will happily continue to vote for him until he retires. No one else in DC seems to have quite the grasp on the intersection of technology and privacy as him, he’s always got his finger on the pulse of what’s actually going on.
Hopefully this bill has legs, but the cynic in me assumes it’s DOA due to the confluence of idiots and money in our political systems. Instead they’ll chase their tails to pass some dumb shit that likely does the opposite of the supposed intentions.
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Most likely they’ll either pass something bad or useless, or they’ll pass nothing at all like they have the past 5 years or so.
As a brit looking on I can’t not think a lot of the time that KOSA will pass. Particularly when Microsoft Snapchat and now twitter have endorsed it. This whole thing is terrifying Particularly as it would weirdly help make the online saftey act over here work (I was thinking the uk government would just delay implementation then quietly not implement it as they’ve done over tech bill’s but kosa could help it). Obviously I deferr to everyone else here on whether it will pass or not you’d know better than me.
Re: KOSA
As an American I still suspect KOSA will most likely not pass, and this latest hearing hasn’t changed my impression of things. Meta, TikTok, and Discord all seem to be against KOSA, at least in its current form, and last I checked X’s support is questionable.
Plus if it gets 60 votes, gets past Wyden’s hold, and passes the Senate it still has to pass the House, which has been so dysfunctional lately as to not be able to pass anything.
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I need more understanding of Americans system. How often do bill’s pass particularly high profile bill’s. Here in the uk we have government bill’s which as the name suggests are bill’s introduced by the government and private members bill’s which are introduced by individual MP’s. It’s pretty much common practice that government bill’s pass (no surprise when the majority party is the government so the government can in theory get there MP’s to support there bill’s) but private members bill’s don’t often pass (very rarely do), i’ve heard that the American Congress always struggles to pass anything to the point almost nothing passes. Is this true or am I reading to much into thing’s?
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This is true in recent history, and especially true of this Congress. Last year only 27 bills, most of which were either necessary or completely uncontroversial, became law. (Note that in general, there’s no distinction between “government” and “private members'” bills — there are just bills with more or less support from senators from one or the other or both sides.)
On the one hand, the concerning thing about KOSA is that its supporters are from both parties. On the other hand, this isn’t the first time it’s failed, and there’s a lot of pressure from the public against passing the bill at all. Plus this Congress has been incredibly non-productive, with the House in particular being a graveyard for even bipartisan Senate bills, and the current round of budget fights for the fiscal year is still ongoing.
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Of the bills that failed last year how many of them had major bipartisan support like kosa enjoys?
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The Ukraine funding and border security bill this year is a bipartisan Senate compromise. It is almost certainly going to die in the House.
Also this incarnation of KOSA is far from the only bad bipartisan Internet bill that has failed to pass in the last 6 years. There’s been many, including prior versions of KOSA.
I’m not saying that US readers should get complacent, by the way. If anyone reading this is in the US, call your senators. I’m calling mine tomorrow afternoon, and one of them is Schumer who has been and is currently getting pressure. I’m writing this to explain things to the UK commenter.
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It is worrying that Snap, Microsoft and X/Twitter are backing the bill.
I do also want to say there is a rumor going around that Zuckerberg went into the office of Senator Blumenthal and is starting to warm up to KOSA but only if app stores responsible for age verification. Zuckerberg is insisting on drivers licenses and that he will create a cheap system to verify. As you know Age verification is very unconstitutional and has already been taken down in court (Reno V ACLU) and would make the bill more unlikely to pass, sounds to me like Zuckerberg wants a poison pill amendment added to the bill.
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x isn’t fully confirmed yet
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What do you mean by “questionable”
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My understanding is that it hasn’t been fully confirmed, and that Linda sounded confused (understandable since she is a figurehead for Musk and is only there to try to win over advertisers).
I probably should have said “uncertain”.
$$$$
KOSA will cost the government nothing if passed. Wyden’s bill will cost millions. Guess which one is most likely to pass.
i saw “reporting” and clips of the “hearing” on regular tv news. Absolutely disgusting.
I am! I’m paying attention! This is the first place I went to find out what happened in the hearing today! Unfortunately, I’m a rando normie who can just barely understand the underlying tech and legal considerations. Sorry. But I do appreciate your work!
Legislation that would actually help deal with kid exploitation online should include mandatory lessons to tell kids that yes, men fall in love with men, and women fall in love with women. It is entirely natural as evolution intended.
Because the alternative would be trash like KOSA, which as we all know, is legalized homophobia. We must stand up against such attacks on our identity and ferociously respond.
Huh, I wonder why all the MAGAts who yell “groomer” and “degenerate” are quiet about this one…
I just wish one of those CEOs had, when a Senator asked what they plan to do about CSAM on their platforms, stood up and said:
“We already report X items a year to the authorities to investigate and prosecute, and they all apparently get ignored. What do you plan to do about that?”
Re: 'We're doing out part to fight CSAM, why aren't you?'
I would actually be tempted to torture myself by watching these dumpsterfire’s if a CEO actually had the spine to say something like that.
DOJ not following the law?
Not to get off on too big of a tangent, when Sen. Wyden says, “ The legislation would also create a new office within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to coordinate efforts across federal agencies, after the DOJ refused to comply with a 2008 law requiring coordination and reporting of those efforts.”, what exactly does that mean? Can someone explain how the DOJ can ignore a law that it is bound by? If they really can do this, what’s the point of even having these laws? What am I missing?
Re: Same way cops do it: 'The people who can prosecute me are all my buddies'
Can someone explain how the DOJ can ignore a law that it is bound by?
Oh that’s horrifically easy to explain, and can be done in two questions:
Who do you report the DOJ to when they violate a law?
Where do you go to to find someone that has the power, authority and willingness to investigate and prosecute the DOJ?
'Who cares if it works, it's not flashy enough to help my re-election!'
Indeed, after doing a quick search online, I can find exactly no articles about Wyden’s bill. Dealing with actual problems isn’t the kind of thing this Congress does, nor something that the media cares about.
And that is how you know that none of those involved, either politicians or press are doing this because they actually want to help and protect kids.
A bill that actually would do something to deal with child exploitation and abuse gets zero coverage, meanwhile a bill that half it’s supporters have made crystal clear will be used to silence LGBTQ+ people, and where those with actual expertise in the field have said will leave kids worse off gets 24/7 coverage and PR stunts/press releases on the regular.