WASHINGTON—Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a markup of the Strengthening Transparency and Obligation to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment Act (STOP CSAM Act). While the bill’s goal is commendable, the impact of it as written will fail to increase online safety—and could inadvertently result in less security and more censorship.
The committee should reject it. Current law requires any website that finds child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to take it down and report it to NCMEC or face liability. Websites and social media services go beyond these requirements, proactively implementing advanced detection systems and voluntarily reporting suspected CSAM to NCMEC even in cases where the law might not strictly require it. However, less than 1% of their reports are actually investigated by law enforcement due to a lack of capacity.
This year, President Trump and Congress can win on this with lawful, effective proposals to tackle these issues. To start, Congress should pass the Invest in Child Safety Act. It would give law enforcement needed funding to properly investigate reports of abuse online and ensure predators are off the internet and off our streets.
Congress should also work with President Trump and Attorney General Bondi to enforce the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008. This law aimed to create, “a strong nationwide network of highly trained law enforcement experts to track down these offenders and put them behind bars,” but a December 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) showed Biden’s DOJ was not complying with the law.
“Congress should move away from ineffective bills like STOP CSAM that enable censorship, shift the focus from stopping cybercriminals and predators, and don’t tackle the underlying problems for online safety,” said Amy Bos, NetChoice Director of State & Federal Affairs. “To win on this issue, NetChoice encourages them to pass the Invest in Child Safety Act and work with President Trump’s DOJ to ensure the PROTECT Our Children Act is enforced. These actions would significantly help law enforcement get predators off the internet and off America’s streets without endangering protected speech rights.”
“NetChoice strongly supports finding the right path to increase online safety, and we hope to work with Congress and the White House to achieve it,” Bos concluded.
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