[Senate Hearing 118-028]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 118-028

                     PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN ONLINE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                              BEFORE THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           FEBRUARY 14, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. J-118-3

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
52-253 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                   RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina, 
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island             Ranking Member
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       JOHN CORNYN, Texas
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              TED CRUZ, Texas
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California             TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
                                     MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
             Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
      Katherine Nikas, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                     FEBRUARY 14, 2023, 11:03 A.M.

                    STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                   Page

Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of 
  Illinois.......................................................     1
Graham, Hon. Lindsey O., a U.S. Senator from the State of South 
  Carolina.......................................................     3
Blumenthal, Hon. Richard, a U.S. Senator from the State of 
  Connecticut....................................................     4
Blackburn, Hon. Marsha, a U.S. Senator from the State of 
  Tennessee......................................................     5

                               WITNESSES

Witness List.....................................................    45
Bride, Kristin, survivor parent and social media reform advocate, 
  Portland, Oregon...............................................     8
    prepared statement...........................................    46
DeLaune, Michelle C., president and chief executive officer, 
  National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Alexandria, 
  Virginia.......................................................    10
    prepared statement...........................................    53
Golin, Josh, executive director, Fairplay, Boston, Massachusetts.    15
    prepared statement...........................................    73
Lembke, Emma, founder, Log Off Movement, Birmingham, Alabama.....     9
    prepared statement...........................................    93
Pizzuro, John, chief executive officer, Raven, Point Pleasant, 
  New Jersey.....................................................    12
    prepared statement...........................................    96
Prinstein, Mitch J., Ph.D., ABPP, chief science officer, American 
  Psychological Association, Washington, DC......................    14
    prepared statement...........................................   103

                               QUESTIONS

Questions submitted to Kristin Bride by Senator Whitehouse.......   125
Questions submitted to Michelle C. DeLaune by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   126
    Senator Tillis...............................................   127
Questions submitted to Josh Golin by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   128
    Senator Tillis...............................................   129
Questions submitted to Emma Lembke by Senator Whitehouse.........   131
Questions submitted to John Pizzuro by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   132
    Senator Welch................................................   133
    Senator Tillis...............................................   134
Questions submitted to Mitch J. Prinstein by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   135
    Senator Welch................................................   136

                                ANSWERS

Responses of Kristin Bride to questions submitted by Senator 
  Whitehouse.....................................................   137
Responses of Michelle C. DeLaune to questions submitted by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   141
    Senator Tillis...............................................   143
Responses of Josh Golin to questions submitted by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   147
      Attachment.................................................   150
    Senator Tillis...............................................   200
Responses of Emma Lembke to questions submitted by Senator 
  Whitehouse.....................................................   207
Responses of John Pizzuro to questions submitted by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   209
    Senator Welch................................................   210
    Senator Tillis...............................................   211
Responses of Mitch J. Prinstein to questions submitted by:
    Senator Whitehouse...........................................   212
    Senator Welch................................................   213

                MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Submitted by Chair Durbin:

    Bronstein, Rosellene, statement, February 14, 2023...........   221
    Charmaraman, Linda, Ph.D., statement, February 14, 2023......   224
    CSTI, letter, February 14, 2023..............................   229
      Attachment I...............................................   232
      Attachment II..............................................   234
      Attachment III.............................................   236
    Howard, Ed, letter, February 12, 2023........................   240
    Lembke, Anna, M.D., statement, February 14, 2023.............   249
    RAINN, letter, February 21, 2023.............................   257

Submitted by Ranking Member Graham:

    Arora, Saanvi, and Ani Chaglasian, letter, February 10, 2023.   260
    Bergman, Matthew P., Lewis & Clark Law Review, Vol. 26.4, 
      2023, article..............................................   262
    Bergman, Matthew P., statement, February 14, 2023............   306


 
                     PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN ONLINE

                              ----------                              


                       TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2023

                              United States Senate,
                                Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:03 a.m., in 
Room 216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. Durbin, 
Chair of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Durbin [presiding], Whitehouse, 
Klobuchar, Coons, Blumenthal, Hirono, Ossoff, Welch, Grassley, 
Graham, Cornyn, Lee, Hawley, Kennedy, and Blackburn.
    Also present: Former Congressman Dick Gephardt and Governor 
Maura Healey, of Massachusetts.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
           A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Chair Durbin. This meeting of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee will come to order. Before we begin, I want to 
comment on last night's mass shooting at Michigan State 
University that took the lives of three students and injured 
five others. This was the 67th mass shooting in America so far 
this year. Sixty-seven. More than one a day. Today, February 
14th, is already the anniversary of two horrific mass shootings 
in Parkland, Florida, 5 years ago, and Northern Illinois 
University in DeKalb, 15 years ago. Now the friends and 
families of Michigan State students join in that grief. My 
heart goes out to them.
    Last Congress, this Committee held 11 hearings on our 
Nation's gun violence epidemic, and the Senate passed the most 
significant gun safety reform in nearly 30 years, but it's not 
enough. We have more to do. We've lost 5,200 Americans to 
gunfire already this year, and we're only halfway through 
February. We were able to come together on a bipartisan basis 
last year to close gaps in our laws to help reduce shootings. 
We need to continue the efforts in this Committee and this 
Congress, and I'll work to do so. We owe that to the families 
and communities who have lost so much.
    Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will focus on an 
issue that impacts every family: keeping our kids safe in the 
internet age. This little device here [holding up a cell phone] 
is an amazing source of information and communication, but it 
also has some properties, which we'll discuss today, that are 
not obvious as you glance at it. Why is it that children who 
can't really walk on their own, maybe not even talk yet, can 
operate one of these, can punch the screen to move things? 
There is a captivation that's taking place there in the minds 
of young people that continues. It is addictive. We know that. 
We also know that it's threatening, and we're going to hear 
some stories today, tales of terrible results of communication 
through this device.
    The online world offers tremendous opportunities and 
benefits, but it's a serious risk and danger to our kids. In 
almost every aspect of the real world, child safety is a top 
priority. We lock the door and teach our kids not to talk to 
strangers, but in the virtual world, criminals and bullies 
don't need to pick a lock or wait outside the playground to 
hurt our kids. They only have to lurk in the shadows online of 
Facebook and Snapchat. In those shadows, they can bully, 
intimidate, addict, or sexually exploit our kids right in our 
own homes. I'd like to turn to a brief video at this point 
about the risks our children face.
    [Video presentation is shown.]
    The online exploitation of children is an urgent, growing 
threat. A report last year from Pew Research found that nearly 
half of American teens report being harassed or bullied online. 
Nearly half. As too many families know, cyberbullying, which is 
often relentless, cruel, and anonymous, can lead to tragic 
results. Social media can also cause a variety of mental health 
problems in teenagers, including anxiety, depression, stress, 
body image issues. This has been well documented, and the Big 
Tech companies know it.
    But despite all these known risks and harms, online 
platforms are doing everything they can to keep our kids' eyes 
glued to the screens. In the process, they're vacuuming up tons 
of data they can use to build profiles and target our kids with 
even more ads and content. It's a lucrative business at the 
expense of our kids' privacy, safety, and health. We don't have 
to take it.
    Today we'll hear from an outstanding panel of witnesses 
about the challenges to protecting kids online and the steps we 
in the Senate and this Committee can take to help. I want to 
thank our witnesses Kristin Bride and Emma Lembke who've been 
personally impacted by this issue. They speak on behalf of many 
others, and they advocate for change to help spare others what 
they and their families have gone through. Thank you both for 
being here today.
    I want to acknowledge Rose Bronstein from Chicago who is in 
the audience. She lost her son Nate to suicide last year after 
he was viciously bullied over Snapchat and other social media 
platforms. Ms. Bronstein, I'm sorry for your loss.
    We're also joined by experts representing the National 
Center for Missing & Exploited Children, law enforcement, the 
American Psychological Association, and the advocacy 
organization Fairplay. The Big Tech platforms are not here 
today, but don't worry, they'll have their chance. We'll invite 
their leaders to appear before this Committee soon to discuss 
how they can be part of the solution instead of the problem.
    Today's discussion builds upon years of important work by 
this Committee. Ranking Member Graham held important hearings 
on this issue when he chaired the Committee. I thank him for 
his partnership in organizing today's hearings. We consider it 
a bipartisan call to action.
    There are a number of worthwhile legislative proposals to 
protect our kids, such as the EARN IT Act, which enjoys strong 
bipartisan support in this Committee. Additionally, for months 
I've been working on a comprehensive bill to close the gaps in 
the law and crack down on the proliferation of child sex abuse 
material online, the Stop CSAM Act. Today I'll be releasing a 
discussion draft of this legislation, and I hope to move 
forward with it soon.
    I also want to acknowledge--she's here now, both Senators 
are here now--Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn of this 
Committee, who have been leaders on this issue in another 
Committee, the Commerce Committee, for a long time. I look 
forward to hearing our witnesses' ideas for reform, and I hope 
they can provide the basis for advancing legislation.
    Like we do in the real world, we need to protect our kids 
in the virtual world. This is not a partisan issue. It's an 
issue that keeps parents and children up at night. It deserves 
the attention of this Committee and this Congress, and it 
deserves action. I now turn to the Ranking Member, Senator 
Graham.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LINDSEY O. GRAHAM,
        A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

    Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One, I want to 
congratulate you for calling this hearing. It couldn't come at 
a better time. It's a great panel. I want the people testifying 
to understand that we're all listening to you, that all of our 
ears are open and our hearts are open to try to find solutions.
    This is the one thing I think unites most Americans, is 
that most of them feel helpless. The American consumer is 
virtually unprotected from the adverse effects of social media. 
That needs to, and I think will, change. How do you protect the 
consumer?
    Well, you have regulatory agencies that protect our food 
and our health, in general. In this space, there are none. You 
have statutory schemes to protect the consumer from abuse. In 
this space, there are none. You can always go to court in 
America, if you feel like you've been wronged, except here.
    So, the American consumer is virtually unprotected from the 
abuses of social media. And, of all Americans, I think young 
people are the most exposed here. Parents feel helpless. 
There's somebody affecting your kids you'll never see, and a 
lot of times it's a machine. Who's watching the machine, if at 
all?
    And the Surgeon General issued a report that's pretty 
damning, about the business model is to get people to watch 
things as much as possible, whether or not those things are 
good for you. They make money based on eyeballs and 
advertising. There is no regulatory agency in America with any 
meaningful power to control this. There are more bills being 
introduced in this area than any subject matter that I know of. 
All of them are bipartisan.
    So, I want to add a thought to the mix, Mr. Chairman. I'm 
working with Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. We 
have pretty divergent political opinions, except here. We have 
to do something, and the sooner, the better. We're going to 
approach this from consumer protection. We're going to look at 
a digital regulatory commission that would have power to shut 
these sites down if they're not doing best business practices 
to protect children from sexual exploitation online.
    There were 21 million episodes last year of sexual 
exploitation against children. It was a million--1.4, I think, 
in 2014. This is an epidemic. It is a mental health crisis, 
particularly for young teenaged girls. And we have no system in 
place to empower parents and empower consumers to seek justice, 
to fight back, and protect themselves. That's going to change 
in this Congress, I hope.
    So, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you. I 
know Senator Blackburn's been very involved in the privacy 
space. I've worked with Senator Blumenthal on the EARN IT Act. 
So, we're going to work together the best we can to find 
solutions to empower consumers who are pretty much at the will 
of social media, and some people are having their lives ruined. 
It's now time for us to act.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Graham. I'm going to ask our 
two colleagues Senator Blumenthal and Senator Blackburn to give 
brief opening remarks. As I mentioned earlier, they've both 
been pioneers in this subject matter.
    Senator Blumenthal.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL,
          A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. And I 
want to personally thank you not only for having this hearing 
but your very important interest and work on protecting kids 
online. And I'm grateful, as well, to Senator Graham for his 
partnership on the EARN IT Act. This cause is truly bipartisan, 
which Senator Blackburn and I, I think, are showing in real 
time here, the work that we're doing together. The EARN IT Act 
can be a meaningful step toward reforming this unconscionably 
excessive Section 230 shield to Big Tech accountability.
    I think we need to be blunt, from the beginning, because we 
know right now the central truth. Big Tech has relentlessly, 
ruthlessly pumped up profits by purposefully exploiting kids' 
and parents' pain. Young people like Emma Lembke have been 
victims of Big Tech's hideous experiment, as President Biden 
rightfully called it. Parents like Kristin Bride have lost 
beautiful children like Carson. Parents whose tears and raw 
grief as you came to see me in my office have moved me with 
heartbreaking power.
    But beyond heartbreak, what I feel is outrage: outrage at 
inaction, Congress' inexcusable failure to pass the bill that 
you advance courageously and eloquently, the Kids Online Safety 
Act; outrage at Big Tech, pillaging the public interest with 
its armies of lobbyists and lawyers, despite their pledges of 
collaboration; outrage that you and other victims must relive 
the pain and grief that break our hearts and should, finally, 
be a moral imperative to action.
    We came so close, last session. We need to seize this 
moment. We face a public health imperative, not just a moral 
reckoning. Our Nation is in the midst of a mental health 
crisis. If you have any doubt about it, read the latest CDC 
survey that says three out of five girls in America experience 
deep depression, sadness, and helplessness that drives many of 
them to plan suicide.
    It's a public health emergency, egregiously and knowingly 
exacerbated by Big Tech; aggravated by toxic content on eating 
disorders, bullying, even suicide; driven by Big Tech's black-
box algorithms, leading children down dark rabbit holes. We 
have to give kids and parents--yes, both kids and parents--the 
tools, transparency, and guardrails they need to take back 
control over their own lives. And that is why we must and we 
will double down on the Kids Online Safety Act.
    After five extensive hearings last session with Senator 
Blackburn at our Commerce Consumer Protection Subcommittee, and 
I thank Senator Maria Cantwell for her leadership; after deeply 
painful conversations with young people and parents like Emma 
and Kristin; after testimony from brave whistleblowers like 
Frances Haugen, who presented documents, not just personal 
anecdotes, but smoking-gun proof that Facebook calculatingly 
drove toxic content to draw more eyeballs, more clicks, more 
dollars, more profits; after Facebook hid this evidence from 
parents, even misled us, in Congress--it's Big Tobacco's 
playback and playbook, all over again--the evidence of harm is 
heartbreakingly abundant beyond any reasonable doubt. Action is 
imperative now, and I think these brave victims at our hearing 
ought to provide the impetus and momentum.
    Right now, urgently, the Kids Online Safety Act can be a 
model for how bipartisan legislating can still work, a message 
to the public that Congress can still work. We need to reform 
Section 230. Senator Graham and I are working on the EARN IT 
Act. I commit that we will work on major Section 230 reform, 
and it will be bipartisan. This mental health crisis will 
persist, take more young lives, unless Congress cares more 
about the Kids Online Safety Act than it does about Big Tech.
    It's urgent that we move forward and I am haunted by what 
one parent told me, and all of us, in advocating for the Kids 
Online Safety Act. She said, ``Congress must act. It's a 
powerful call to action.'' And she asked, ``How many more 
children have to die before we make them a priority? Now is the 
time. Let's pass it.'' That's her quote. Mine is, ``Congress 
needs to act and heed that call and do it now.'' Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Blackburn.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN,
           A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

    Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
calling the hearing today. Appreciate that you and Senator 
Graham are turning attention to this. As many of you in the 
audience know, this is something that Senator Blumenthal and I 
have worked on for quite a period of time. We started on this 
about 3 years ago, and what you saw over the last couple of 
years was a series of hearings and Kristin and Emma and others 
who came in to tell their stories and to provide us with 
information and to walk us through what was happening.
    So, we have heard from parents and kids and teachers and 
pediatricians and child psychologists who are all looking at us 
and saying, ``This is an emergency.'' And anybody who doubts 
it--Senator Blumenthal just held up, and I have also, the CDC 
report that just came out, where you talk about youth risk 
behavior. And guess what? Social media is one of those items 
that is a part of that risk. And we have just taken to heart--
we've listened to not only the testimony in the hearings but to 
many of you that came separately to our offices to talk to us 
and to say, ``This is our experience, and we want somebody to 
know about this, because something needs to be done.''
    It is almost as if these social media platforms are 
operating in the days of the Wild West, and anything goes. And 
when these children are on these platforms, they're the 
product. They're the product. Their data is taken. That data is 
monetized, and then it is sold to the advertisers, who are 
going to feed more information to these children.
    And we've come up with this Kids Online Safety Act. Now, we 
got close last time, and we almost got it through the finish 
line, and we didn't. So, new Congress. A new start on this. And 
we're so pleased that Judiciary Committee is working with us, 
with Commerce Committee, and we hope to get it on--there are 
some things that ought to be a given. These social media 
platforms ought to be required to make these platforms safer by 
default, not just safer if you go through the 20 next steps, 
but safer by default. That ought to be required.
    We should also have a requirement that these platforms have 
to do independent audits, go through independent audits, not 
their research. Now, some of you have said, in these hearings 
we've done, and you've heard these social media companies say, 
``Well, we're always auditing ourselves.'' But who ever knows 
what that audit shows? Not you. Not me. Nobody knows. They like 
to keep that to themselves, because as Senator Blumenthal has 
said, eyeballs on that site for a longer period of time--it's 
more money, money, money in the bank. And who pays that price? 
Our kids. Our kids.
    Our legislation was supported by 150 different groups. Now, 
in a time where politics is divided and you hear left and 
right, to get 150 different groups to come together and support 
something, I think that's a pretty good day. I think that shows 
a lot of support. So, we realized that much of the reason these 
groups were coming out and supporting the transparency and the 
accountability and the duty of care was because they realized 
talking to these social media platforms was like talking to a 
brick wall. They could not get a response, and because of that, 
something different was going to have to be done.
    Senator Graham said it well in his comments. It is 
imperative that we take an action because this is a health 
emergency. If you don't believe it, read the CDC report. When 
you have a majority of children that are experiencing adverse 
impacts from social media platforms, you have to step in and do 
something. And that is what we are working to do. We welcome 
all of you. Thank you to our witnesses, and we look forward to 
the hearing today.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Blackburn. Let me say at 
the outset that, to explain to any newcomers, we have two roll 
call votes that are going to start in just a matter of minutes. 
So, Members will come and go. That is no disrespect to the 
subject matter or to our witnesses and guests, but we are going 
to do a tag team to make sure there is always someone here to 
follow your testimony and try to gather after the roll calls, 
but that's the circumstance.
    Let me welcome the six witnesses. Kristin Bride is a 
survivor parent to Carson Bride, and she is a nationally 
recognized social media reform advocate, founding member of the 
Screen Time Action Network Online Harms Prevention group. She 
advocates for online safety for kids. A member of the Council 
for Responsible Social Media, she collaborates with other 
organizations to raise awareness and advocate legislation to 
hold Big Tech accountable.
    Emma Lembke. She's from Birmingham, Alabama. Second-year 
political science major at Washington University in St. Louis 
and the founder of Log Off, a youth movement that works to 
uplift and empower young people to tackle the complexities of 
social media. Ms. Lembke has also co-founded Tech(nically 
Politics), a youth lobbying campaign dedicated to advocating 
greater regulation for Big Tech.
    Michelle DeLaune is president and chief executive officer 
of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the 
first woman to lead this organization. During her two decades 
at NCMEC, Ms. DeLaune has witnessed firsthand the evolving 
threats to our kids, including the explosion--explosion--of 
child sexual exploitation online.
    John Pizzuro serves as CEO of Raven, an advocacy group that 
focuses on protecting kids from exploitation and supporting 
those who fight for them. Previously, Mr. Pizzuro spent 25 
years in the New Jersey State Police, with the last 6 years as 
commander of their Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. 
There, he led a team of 200 individuals and 71 law enforcement 
agencies. They apprehended over 1,500 people who preyed on 
innocents.
    Dr. Mitch Prinstein--is it Prinstein or Prinstein?
    Dr. Prinstein. Prinstein.
    Chair Durbin. Prinstein? Dr. Mitch Prinstein, chief science 
officer for the American Psychological Association, responsible 
for leading their scientific agenda. Before assuming this post, 
he was the John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of 
Psychology at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. His 
research is focused on adolescent interpersonal experience and 
psychological symptoms, including depression.
    Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, the leading 
independent watchdog of children's media and marketing 
industries. Fairplay holds companies accountable for their 
harmful marketing and platform design choices, advocates for 
policies to protect children online. In his role, Mr. Golin 
regularly speaks to parents, professionals, and policymakers 
about how to create a healthier environment.
    After we swear in the witnesses, each will have 5 minutes 
for opening statements. Then Senators will have rounds of 
questions. So, first let me ask that all the witnesses stand to 
be sworn in. Please raise your right hand.
    [Witnesses are sworn in.]
    Chair Durbin. Let the record reflect that witnesses have 
answered in the affirmative. Ms. Bride, please, if you will, 
start our round.

 STATEMENT OF KRISTIN BRIDE, SURVIVOR PARENT AND SOCIAL MEDIA 
               REFORM ADVOCATE, PORTLAND, OREGON

    Ms. Bride. Thank you, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member 
Graham, and Members of the Committee. My name is Kristin Bride. 
I am a survivor parent and social media reform advocate and 
member of the bipartisan Council for Responsible Social Media. 
I am testifying here today to bring a face to the harms 
occurring every day resulting from the unchecked power of the 
social media industry.
    This is my son Carson Bride, with the beautiful blue eyes 
and amazing smile and great sense of humor, who will be forever 
16 years old. As involved parents raising our two sons in 
Oregon, we thought that we were doing everything right. We 
waited until Carson was in eighth grade to give him his first 
cell phone, an old phone with no apps. We talked to our boys 
about online safety and the importance of never sending 
anything online that you wouldn't want your name and face next 
to on a billboard. Carson followed these guidelines, yet 
tragedy still struck our family.
    It was June 2020. Carson had just gotten his first summer 
job making pizzas, and after a successful first night of 
training, he wrote his upcoming work schedule on our kitchen 
calendar. We expressed how proud we were of him for finding a 
job during the pandemic. In so many ways, it was a wonderful 
night, and we were looking forward to summer. The next morning, 
I woke to the complete shock and horror that Carson had hung 
himself in our garage while we slept.
    In the weeks that followed, we learned that Carson had been 
viciously cyberbullied by his Snapchat friends, his high school 
classmates who were using the anonymous apps Yolo and LMK on 
Snapchat to hide their identities. It wasn't until Carson was a 
freshman in high school that we finally allowed him to have 
social media, because that was how all the students were making 
new connections.
    What we didn't know is apps like Yolo and LMK were using 
popular social media platforms to promote anonymous messaging 
to hundreds of millions of teen users. After his death, we 
discovered that Carson had received nearly 100 negative, 
harassing, sexually explicit, and humiliating messages, 
including 40 in just 1 day. He asked his tormentors to swipe up 
and identify themselves so they could talk things out in 
person. No one ever did. The last search on his phone before 
Carson ended his life was for hacks to find out the identities 
of his abusers.
    Anonymous apps like Whisper, Sarahah, and Yik Yak have a 
long history of enabling cyberbullying and leading to teen 
suicides. The critical flaws in these platforms are compounded 
by the fact that teens do not typically report being 
cyberbullied. They are too fearful that their phones, to which 
they are completely addicted, will be taken away or that they 
will be labeled a snitch by their friends.
    Yolo's own policies stated that they would monitor for 
cyberbullying and reveal the identities of those who do so. I 
reached out to Yolo on four separate occasions in the months 
following Carson's death, letting them know what happened to my 
son and asking them to follow their own policies. I was ignored 
all four times. At this point, I decided I needed to fight 
back. I filed a national class action lawsuit in May 2021 
against Snap Inc., Yolo, and LMK.
    We believe Snap Inc. suspended Yolo and LMK from their 
platform because of our advocacy; however, our complaint 
against Yolo and LMK for product liability design defects and 
fraudulent product misrepresentation was dismissed in the 
Central District Court of California last month, citing Section 
230 immunity. And still, new anonymous apps like NGL and sendit 
are appearing on social media platforms and charging teens 
subscription fees to reveal the messenger or provide useless 
hints.
    I speak before you today with tremendous responsibility to 
represent the many other parents who have lost their children 
to social media harms. Our numbers continue to grow 
exponentially, with teen deaths from dangerous online 
challenges, sextortion, fentanyl-laced drugs, and eating 
disorders. Let us be clear. These are not coincidences, 
accidents, or unforeseen consequences. They are the direct 
result of products designed to hook and monetize America's 
children.
    It should not take grieving parents filing lawsuits to hold 
this industry accountable for their dangerous and addictive 
product designs. Federal legislation like the Kids Online 
Safety Act, KOSA, which requires social media companies to have 
a duty of care when designing their products for America's 
children, is long overdue. We need lawmakers to step up, put 
politics aside, and finally protect all children online. Thank 
you for this opportunity, and I look forward to answering your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bride appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Ms. Bride.
    Ms. Emma Lembke?

     STATEMENT OF EMMA LEMBKE, FOUNDER, LOG OFF MOVEMENT, 
                      BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

    Ms. Lembke. Hello, everyone. My name is Emma Lembke. I am 
originally from Birmingham, Alabama, but currently I am a 
sophomore studying political science at Washington University 
in St. Louis. I am humbled and honored to be here today.
    I created my first social media account, Instagram, in the 
sixth grade. As a 12-year-old girl, to 12-year-old me, these 
platforms seemed almost magical, but as I began to spend more 
time online, I was met with a harsh reality. Social media was 
not magic. It was an illusion, a product that was predicated on 
maximizing my attention at the cost of my well-being.
    As my screen time increased, my mental and physical health 
suffered. The constant quantification of my worth through 
likes, comments, and followers heightened my anxiety and 
deepened my depression. As a young woman, the constant exposure 
to unrealistic body standards and harmful recommended content 
led me toward disordered eating and severely damaged my sense 
of self.
    But no matter the harm incurred, addictive features like 
auto-play and the endless scroll pulled me back into the online 
world, where I continued to suffer, and there I remained for 
over 3 years, mindlessly scrolling for 5 to 6 hours a day. I 
eventually reached a breaking point in the ninth grade, and I 
began the long and difficult process of rebuilding my 
relationship with technology in a healthier way.
    Senators, my story is not one in isolation. It is a story 
representative of my generation, Generation Z. As the first 
digital natives, we have the deepest understanding of the harms 
of social media, through our lived experiences, but it is from 
those experiences that we can begin to build the most promising 
solutions. It is only when young people are given a place at 
the table that effective solutions can emerge and safer online 
spaces can be created. The power of youth voices is far too 
great to continue to be ignored.
    Through Log Off, I have engaged with hundreds of kids 
across the globe who have shared their experiences of harm with 
me. I have listened as young people have told me stories of 
online harassment, vicious cyberbullying, unwanted direct 
messages. But most powerfully, I have heard as members of my 
generation have expressed concern not just for our own well-
being but for younger siblings, for cousins, and for all those 
to come after us.
    While our stories may differ, we share the frustration of 
being portrayed as passive victims of Big Tech. We are ready to 
be active agents of change, rebuilding new and safer online 
spaces for the next generation. Ten years from now, social 
media will not be what it is today. It will be what members of 
my generation build it to be. We want to build it differently. 
We want to build it right.
    I came here today as the representative for those young 
change-makers, to be the voice not just of those in my 
generation who have been harmed or who are currently struggling 
but to be a voice for all of those 12-year-old girls yet to 
come. The genie is out of the bottle, and we will never go back 
to a time where social media does not exist, nor should we, but 
make no mistake, unregulated social media is a weapon of mass 
destruction that continues to jeopardize the safety, privacy, 
and well-being of all American youth.
    It's time to act. And I urge you, Senators, to take 
meaningful steps to regulate these companies, not just for our 
generation and my generation, but with my generation. 
Integrating youth-lived experiences is essential in the 
regulatory process in getting it right. Thank you for having me 
here today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lembke appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Ms. Lembke.
    Ms. DeLaune?

STATEMENT OF MICHELLE C. DeLAUNE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE 
  OFFICER, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN, 
                      ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

    Ms. DeLaune. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Durbin, 
Ranking Member Graham, and Members of the Committee. My name is 
Michelle DeLaune, and I am the president and CEO of the 
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. NCMEC is a 
nonprofit organization created in 1984 by child advocates to 
help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, 
and prevent child victimization.
    I am honored to be here today to share NCMEC's perspective 
on the dangers that are facing children online and how we can 
work together to address these challenges. We have reached an 
inflection point in efforts to combat online child sexual 
exploitation, and we need congressional intervention to pass 
legislation that I'll be speaking to today.
    Last year, NCMEC's CyberTipline received over 32 million 
reports. These reports contained over 88 million images and 
videos and other content related to child sexual exploitation. 
And to put these numbers into perspective, we're averaging 
80,000 new reports each day. The internet is global, and 
unfortunately, so is this crime. Ninety percent of the reports 
that we received last year related to individuals outside of 
the United States, and the remaining reports, about 3.2 
million, related to U.S. individuals.
    The report numbers are staggering, but the quality of 
reports is often lacking, and there are significant disparities 
in how companies report. For instance, companies have no duty 
to report child sex trafficking or online enticement of 
children. Some companies choose not to report sufficient 
information for those cases to be properly assessed and 
investigated, and some companies choose not to submit actual 
images or the videos actually being reported or any information 
that could be used to identify a suspect or a victim.
    And we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Very few 
companies choose to engage in voluntary measures to detect 
known child sexual abuse material, and those who do proactively 
look for that make the most reports. Congress has the 
opportunity to send a powerful message to victims that they are 
not powerless to protect themselves and when abuse imagery of 
themselves has been shared online. Currently, child victims 
have no recourse if a tech company takes no action to stop, 
remove, and report sexually explicit imagery in which they are 
depicted.
    At the core of NCMEC's mission is helping children and 
supporting survivors. And we do a lot to support survivors, but 
we need Congress to help address the complexities that 
survivors face in this space. The following legislative 
measures are urgently needed to support survivors: laws that 
require that content seized by Federal law enforcement from 
offenders be sent to NCMEC for victim identification efforts 
and supporting restitution efforts; laws enabling child victims 
of extortion and enticement to have immunity when reporting 
their images to NCMEC; laws enabling minor victims to have 
legal recourse if a tech company knowingly facilitates the 
distribution of their sexually abusive imagery; regulations to 
implement the remedies promised to survivors in 2018 when the 
Amy, Vicky, and Andy Act was passed by Congress; and laws to 
make sure that we are using the appropriate words when we're 
discussing these crimes: ``child sexual abuse material,'' not 
``child pornography.''
    And while we struggle to address the current volume and 
complexity of online child sexual exploitation, additional 
threats to child safety online are occurring. When a platform 
implements end-to-end encryption, no one, not even the platform 
itself, has visibility into users exploiting children. We 
believe in a balance between user privacy and child safety. 
When tech companies implement end-to-end encryption with no 
preventive measures built in to detect known child sexual abuse 
material, the impact on child safety is devastating.
    Several of the largest reporting companies have indicated 
that they will be moving to default end-to-end encryption this 
year. We estimate that, as a result, two-thirds of reports to 
the CyberTipline submitted by tech companies will go away, and 
these reports will be lost simply because tech companies have 
chosen to stop looking for the material. And we can talk about 
lost report numbers, but behind every report is a child, and 
the abuse doesn't stop just because we decide to stop looking 
for it.
    We look forward to working with Congress and other 
stakeholders on solutions. In closing, NCMEC is proud to 
support many excellent legislative initiatives from last 
Congress, including the EARN IT Act, the END Child Exploitation 
Act, and the Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Act. And we look 
forward to working with Congress to ensure the legislative 
measures become law in the current term.
    I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the 
Committee to discuss the protection of children online. We're 
eager to continue working with this Committee, survivors and 
their families, the Department of Justice, engaged tech 
companies, and other nonprofits to find solutions to these 
problems, because like you, we believe that every child does 
deserve a safe childhood. I thank you, and I look forward to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. DeLaune appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Ms. DeLaune.
    Mr. Pizzuro?

  STATEMENT OF JOHN PIZZURO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, RAVEN, 
                   POINT PLEASANT, NEW JERSEY

    Mr. Pizzuro. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, and 
distinguished Senators, thank you for this opportunity to 
testify on protecting our children online. Today there are 
countless victims of infant and children being raped online as 
well as extortion. The sad reality is we're failing to protect 
our children from the threats they face online. Those who would 
protect our youth are overburdened, under-resourced, which 
makes those children vulnerable.
    I'm here today as the CEO of Raven, an advocacy group 
comprised of 14 professionals, including 9 retired Internet 
Crimes Against Children commanders, task force commanders who 
have committed their lives to the advocacy and the protection 
of children. I'm retired from the New Jersey State Police, 
where I served as the commander of the ICAC Task Force.
    We witnessed children targeted by offenders across all 
platforms. No social media or gaming platform was safe, from 
apps such as Snapchat, Twitter, Kik, Telegram, Discord, LiveMe, 
and MeetMe to gaming platforms and outline games such as 
Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite. And these just represent a 
fraction of places where offenders regularly interact with 
children. If the platform allows individuals to chat or a way 
to share a photograph and videos, I assure you there's a very 
real danger that offenders are using that access to groom or 
sexually exploit minors.
    Children are made vulnerable on these platforms as a result 
of poor moderation, the absence of age or identity 
verification, and inadequate or missing safety mechanisms and 
the sheer determination of offenders. As the New Jersey ICAC 
commander, I struggled with the significant increases in 
arrests, victims, investigations we faced each year. These 
challenges were frustratingly present with every ICAC task 
force commander throughout the United States. The most 
staggering increase we faced was self-generated sexual abuse 
videos of children ages seven, eight, and nine.
    The online landscape is horrifying because offenders know 
this is where our children live, and they recognize there are 
not enough safeguards to keep them at bay. The details of these 
cases shock the conscience. There's no shortage of case reports 
describing the sexual abuse of 11-year-olds or a mother who is 
targeted by an offender because her 5-year-old is too young to 
text but is the age of interest for the offender, or the 
offender bought a stuffed animal for the 10-year-old that he 
was going to rape, along with a bottle of Viagra and other 
sexual devices when that Viagra failed.
    Today, law enforcement is no longer able to proactively 
investigate child exploitation cases, due to the volume of 
CyberTips. As a result of that increase, law enforcement 
agencies have been forced to become reactive, and most no 
longer can engage in the proactive operations such as peer-to-
peer file-sharing investigations or undercover chat operations 
which target hands-on offenders.
    Sadly, most of the investigative leads provided by service 
providers through NCMEC to the ICAC task forces are not 
actionable, meaning they do not contain sufficient information 
to permit an investigation to begin. The lack of uniformity in 
what is reported by service providers results in law 
enforcement being forced to sort through thousands of leads, 
trying to desperately identify worthwhile cases.
    Peer-to-peer file-sharing investigations and operations 
used to allow ICAC task forces to efficiently locate and 
apprehend hands-on offenders. In the last 90 days alone, there 
have been 100,000 IP addresses across the U.S. that have 
distributed known images of rape and toddler sexual abuse, yet 
only 782, less than 1 percent, are being worked right now.
    The Darknet, including Tor, has become the newest online 
haven for child exploitation. Some forums and boards contain 
the most abusive child exploitation videos and images law 
enforcement has encountered. Chat forums allow offenders to 
create best practices on how to groom and abuse children 
effectively. There's a post, even, named The Art of Seduction, 
that explained how to seduce children, that has been read more 
than 54,000 times.
    Based upon what I have experienced, I can confidently tell 
you three things. At the moment, the predators are winning, our 
children are not safe, and those who are fiercely committed to 
protecting them are drowning and will continue to do so unless 
we can get them the resources they need. I thank you for the 
opportunity to testify here today, and I welcome your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pizzuro appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Pizzuro.
    Dr. Prinstein?

  STATEMENT OF MITCH J. PRINSTEIN, Ph.D., ABPP, CHIEF SCIENCE 
  OFFICER, AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC

    Dr. Prinstein. Good morning, Chairman Durbin, Ranking 
Member Graham, and Members of the Judiciary Committee. Thanks 
for the opportunity to testify today.
    Psychologists are experts in all human behavior, and we 
have been studying the effects of social media scientifically 
for years. In my written testimony, I've detailed a variety of 
caveats, limitations, and clarifications that make it 
challenging as a scientist to offer causal statements about the 
effects of social media. In short, online activity likely 
offers both benefits and harms. Today, I want to discuss 
specific social media behaviors and features that are most 
likely to harm and which youth may be most vulnerable.
    Unfortunately, some of these most potentially harmful 
features are built directly into the architecture of many 
social media applications, and kids are explicitly directed 
toward them. To date, we have identified at least seven sets of 
results that deserve more attention to safeguard risk for 
children. I will briefly describe these here, but first it's 
critical to understand that, following the first year of life, 
the most important period for the development of our brains 
begins at the outset of puberty, and this is precisely the time 
when many are given relatively unfettered access to social 
media and other online platforms. In short, neuroscience 
research suggests that when it comes to seeking attention and 
praise from peers, adolescents' brains are all gas pedal with 
weak brakes. This is a biological vulnerability that social 
media capitalizes on, with seven psychological implications.
    First, our data suggest that the average teen is picking up 
their phone over 100 times and spending over 8 hours online a 
day, mostly on social media. Psychological science reveals that 
over half of all youth report at least one symptom of clinical 
dependency on social media, such as the inability to stop using 
it or a significant impairment in their ability to carry out 
even simple daily functions.
    Second, as compared to what kids see offline, data suggest 
that exposure to online content changes how youths' brains 
respond to what they see and influences teens' later behavior. 
These are psychological and neuroscientific phenomena occurring 
outside of youths' conscious awareness, suggesting a 
potentially troubling link between likes, comments, reposts, 
and teens' later risk-taking behavior.
    Third, although many platforms have functions that can be 
used to form healthy relationships, users instead are directed 
to metrics and follower counts that don't really offer 
psychological benefits. For this reason, social media often 
offers the empty calories of social interaction that appear to 
help satiate our biological and social needs but do not contain 
the healthy ingredients necessary to reap benefits. Research 
reveals that in the hours following social media use, teens 
paradoxically report increases, rather than decreases, in 
loneliness.
    Fourth, data suggest that approximately half of youths 
experience digital stress, a phenomenon resulting from too many 
notifications across platforms, a fear of missing important 
social updates, information overload, and anxiety that their 
posts will be well received. More digital stress predicts 
increases in depression over time.
    Fifth, a remarkably high proportion of teens are exposed to 
dangerous discriminatory and hateful content online. This 
predicts anxiety and depression among youth even beyond the 
effects of similar content they see offline.
    Sixth, the more time kids are online, the less time they're 
engaged in activities critical for healthy development, most 
notably sleep. Sleep disruptions at this age are associated 
with changes in the size and physical characteristics of 
growing brains.
    And last, new evidence suggests frequent technology use may 
change adolescent brain growth to increase sensitivity to 
peers' attention and change teens' self-control.
    So, what do we do? First and foremost, we must increase 
Federal funding for this research, $15 million will not move 
the needle. The funding for this work should be commensurate 
with our commitment to protect children.
    Second, parents and teens must become better educated about 
these emerging research findings. Recently, more than 150 
organizations, led by APA, called on the Surgeon General to 
create and distribute teaching resources so families could 
minimize risks and maximize benefits from social media.
    Third, more must be done to protect youth who belong to 
traditionally marginalized communities. Warnings on harmful, 
illegal, hateful, and discriminatory content should be 
mandated, yet content in spaces scientifically proven to offer 
social support and vital health information to members of these 
communities must be saved.
    The manipulation of children to generate a profit is 
unacceptable. The use of children's data should be illegal, and 
the use of psychological tactics known to create addiction or 
implicitly influence children's behavior should be curtailed. 
Social media companies should be compelled to disclose both 
internal and independent data documenting potential risks that 
come from the use of their products, so parents, teens, and 
regulators can make informed decisions.
    APA is heartened by the focus on mental health in Congress 
and eager to work with this Committee to develop legislation 
and help enact bills that will protect children. Your actions 
now can make a difference.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Prinstein appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Doctor. Mr. Golin?

STATEMENT OF JOSH GOLIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FAIRPLAY, BOSTON, 
                         MASSACHUSETTS

    Mr. Golin. Thank you, Chair Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, 
and distinguished Members of the Committee for holding this 
important hearing. My name is Josh Golin, and I'm executive 
director of Fairplay, an organization committed to building a 
world where kids can be kids, free from the harmful 
manipulations of Big Tech and the false promises of marketers. 
We advocate for policies that would create an internet that is 
safe for young people and not exploitative or addictive.
    You've heard today from witnesses about a litany of online 
harms that have had a devastating toll on families in our 
society. These harms share a common nexus: Big Tech's business 
model and manipulative design choices. Digital platforms are 
designed to maximize engagement, because the longer they 
capture a user's attention, the more money they make by 
collecting data and serving targeted ads. As a result, children 
are subject to manipulative design and relentless pressure to 
use these platforms as often as possible.
    Over a third of teenagers say they are on social media 
almost constantly. Overuse of social media displaces critical 
offline activities like sleep, exercise, offline play, and 
face-to-face interactions, which, in turn, undermines 
children's well-being. Big Tech's profit-driven focus on 
engagement doesn't just harm young people by fostering 
compulsive overuse. It also exploits their developmental needs, 
often at the expense of their safety and well-being.
    For example, displays of likes and follower counts, which 
take advantage of young people's desire for social approval, 
invite harmful social comparisons, and incentivize interactions 
with strangers and the posting of provocative and risque 
content. Additionally, algorithms designed to maximize 
engagement fill young people's feeds with curated content that 
is most likely to keep them online, without regard to the 
user's well-being or potentially harmful consequences.
    So, on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, depressed teens 
are shown content promoting self-harm, and young people 
interested in dieting are barraged with content promoting 
eating disorders. A report last year from Fairplay detailed how 
Meta profits from 90,000 unique pro-eating-disorder accounts on 
Instagram that reach more than 6 million minors, some as young 
as nine.
    How did we get here? For one, the last time Congress passed 
a law to protect children online was 25 years ago. The digital 
landscape has changed dramatically in unforeseen ways since the 
passage of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and 
that law only covers children until they turn 13, leaving a 
significant demographic vulnerable to exploitation and harm. 
Consequently, the social media platforms that define youth 
culture and shape our children's values, behavior, and self-
image were developed with little to no thought about how young 
people might be negatively affected.
    At this point, it is clear that tech platforms will not 
unilaterally disarm in the race for children's precious 
attention, nor can we expect young people to extract themselves 
from the exploitative platforms where their friends are or 
expect overworked parents to monitor every moment that their 
kids are online. We need new legislation that puts the brakes 
on this harmful business model and curbs dangerous and unfair 
design practices.
    Such legislation should: one, extend privacy protections to 
teens, to limit the collection of data that fuels harmful 
recommendations and puts young people at risk of privacy harms; 
two, ban surveillance advertising to children and teens, to 
protect them from harmful marketing targeted to their 
individual vulnerabilities; three, impose liability on 
companies for how their design choices and algorithms impact 
young people; four, require platforms to make children's 
privacy and account settings the most protective by default; 
and, finally, impose transparency requirements, including 
access to algorithms, that enable outside researchers to better 
understand how social media impacts young people. Last 
Congress, the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and 
Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, two bills which, 
together, would do all five of these things, advanced out of 
the Commerce Committee with broad bipartisan support.
    The Committee votes followed a series of important hearings 
in the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, as well as the 
House, that established a clear record of harm and the need for 
new online protections for young people. We've named the 
problem and debated the solution. Now is the time to build on 
last year's momentum and disrupt the cycle of harm by passing 
privacy and safety-by-design legislation. Let's make 2023 the 
year that Congress finally takes a huge step toward creating 
the internet children and families deserve. Thank you so much 
for having me here today, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Golin appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. I want to thank all the witnesses. And, as 
you noticed, some of the Members are going to vote and will 
return. At the bottom of this discussion, from the legal point 
of view, is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 
which I'm sure you're all aware of as to the liability of these 
companies for the speech that is broadcast or is exercised over 
their social media. It provides that companies will not be 
treated as publisher or speaker of any information provided by 
another person. Gets them off the hook.
    The EARN IT Act, which we are debating here, would change 
that ball game. Unless there is a provable effort by these 
companies to police their own product, they would be exposed to 
liability. And I will tell you, as a former trial lawyer, I 
invite them to take on the media that ignore that 
responsibility after the EARN IT Act is enacted into law. I 
hope that will be soon.
    Ms. DeLaune, when you told the story about encryption 
inhibiting the CyberTips that come your way, I couldn't help 
but be struck by the numbers that you used. Last year, 32 
million CyberTips were sent to NCMEC, your organization, 
concerning child sex abuse material. Upwards of 80 percent, or 
25 million, of those would be lost if the companies adopt end-
to-end encryption. Would you bring that explanation down to a 
level where liberal arts majors are with you?
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. DeLaune. Absolutely, Senator. Thank you. With the end-
to-end encryption, again, end-to-end encryption serves a very 
important purpose. End-to-end encryption with no mitigation 
strategy for the detection of known child sexual abuse imagery 
is unacceptable, though what we have seen--the vast numbers for 
the CyberTipline are because companies have voluntarily--a 
handful of companies have voluntarily chosen to look and seek 
out known child sexual abuse material. By simply turning off 
the lights and no longer looking, the abuse doesn't go away. 
The abuse continues; just nobody is able to actually 
investigate, intervene, and help a child.
    You know, we really support a balanced approach. There are 
disagreements and discussions between many stakeholders 
regarding how end-to-end encryption can balance user safety, 
user privacy, with not having children as collateral damage. 
You know, we also want to speak to the privacy of the children 
who are depicted in the imagery that is continuing to be 
circulated. These are images, as Mr. Pizzuro mentioned, images 
of children being sexually abused and raped. They also are 
entitled to privacy. So, we do look for a balanced approach 
that will help support user privacy and not leave children as 
unfortunate collateral damage.
    Chair Durbin. Let me open another subject for inquiry, and 
that is the statement by Dr. Prinstein, Mr. Golin--kind of 
reflects, Emma Lembke, on your decision at a very young age to 
do something about what you consider to be a problem. I'm 
trying to square this, the possibility of diverting people from 
conduct which apparently is almost addictive in its nature and 
move them to a different level. Can you comment on that?
    Ms. Lembke. Yes, sir. And, Senator, thank you for your 
question. I think what is important to note is that social 
media is not all bad. Members of my generation understand it to 
be a multifaceted entity, one where we can connect with each 
other, we can explore our identities, and we can express 
ourselves on a new dimension.
    The difficulty, though, of reaping these benefits in these 
online spaces is, as they are right now, as the status quo 
creates it, I, a 12-year-old girl, could go onto Instagram and 
research a healthy recipe and within seconds be fed pro-
anorexic content. There are steps that companies can take to 
place meaningful safeguards so that this content does not harm 
young people and so that we can begin to go into these online 
spaces in a safer and more productive manner, reaping the 
benefits of a technological era.
    Chair Durbin. Dr. Prinstein, your comment on that?
    Dr. Prinstein. I agree. The adolescent brain is built to 
develop dopamine and oxytocin receptors in an area of the brain 
that makes us want to connect with peers, and it feels really 
good when we do. The area of the brain that stops us from 
engaging in impulsive acts, called the prefrontal cortex, does 
not fully develop until the age of 25. So, from 10 to 25, kids' 
brains are built in such a way to make them crave the exact 
kind of content that social media can provide with like buttons 
and reposts, but they are biologically incapable of stopping 
themselves from incessant use of these platforms. That 
vulnerability is being exploited by these platforms.
    Chair Durbin. And the question is whether or not, on their 
own, kids can solve the problem. Do they need help?
    Dr. Prinstein. They need help.
    Chair Durbin. What kind of help?
    Dr. Prinstein. Reminders telling kids that they've been on 
for longer than they intended; helping kids to stop--the 
signals that are coming through social media in the forms of 
likes, reposts, algorithms that are showing them content, 
feeding them the next video, feeding them the next post--those 
are all actually making things much worse, from a 
neuroscientific perspective. If there were controls in place, 
that were age based, to make sure that kids were being blocked 
from engaging in this unbridled kind of craving for social 
attention and dopamine responses, that could significantly 
address the issue.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you. I'm going to recognize Senator 
Grassley, and then Senator Coons is going to preside as I make 
a dash to vote and return. So, Senator Grassley, the floor is 
yours.
    Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all 
your witnesses. I'm sorry I missed your testimony for other 
reasons that's already been explained to you. I'm glad that 
we're here, discussing this very important issue today. I 
happen to be a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, but 
regardless, we've all got to be--with this worthy cause that 
we're discussing today, Congress has and will continue to play 
a crucial role.
    Unfortunately, Congress has had to intervene in times in 
the past. I just want to remind people of the Larry Nassar 
thing, dealing with young girls and the botched investigation 
of the FBI. And Senator Ossoff and I got a bill passed that 
would further give Federal intervention in the case of those 
crimes being committed, if they're committed outside the United 
States by somebody following young people to international 
meets.
    It's also important to hold online service providers 
accountable in keeping our children safe. This EARN IT Act, 
which I was an original co-sponsor of last year, ensures online 
service providers that fail to crack down on certain contents 
are not able to escape because of Section 230 intervention. And 
also, protecting children online also means combating human 
trafficking, and Senator Feinstein and I have passed 
legislation in that area, as well.
    Of course, it's impossible to discuss protecting children 
online without pointing out the unfortunate role of social 
media and the internet playing in drug overdose deaths among 
our children, and I look forward to discussing that strategy to 
prevent those. So, I'm going to go to Mr. Pizzuro first. 
Recently, an Iowa family lost their daughter because she bought 
a fake prescription pill from a drug dealer on Snapchat. It 
contained fentanyl. Her family is suing to try and hold 
Snapchat accountable.
    One particular allegation is that Snapchat's algorithms 
connected their child with a drug dealer who she did not know 
previously, which I would find especially disturbing. So, for 
you, to the best of your ability, can you explain to this 
Committee how Snapchat's algorithms protect children against--
with drug dealers?
    Mr. Pizzuro. Thank you, Mr. Grassley. As far as the 
Snapchat and the algorithms, I'm not 100 percent sure on how 
Snapchat is doing it, but I could talk to the broader 
experience of cell phone usage as far as apps and drugs, 
because whether it's narcotics, whether it's child 
exploitation, whether it's pictures and videos, whether it's 
emojis, everything is done through that social media. Again, 
that's where children are. So, it's very easy to target them 
specifically in those realms. So, I think a lot of times you're 
going to have that. Again, whether it be fentanyl, whether it 
be marijuana, it doesn't matter the drug, but the scope is 
where I can target those individuals, and the offenders, as 
well as the individuals selling that, know that.
    Senator Grassley. You said you couldn't speak specifically 
to Snapchat, so I was going to ask you what social media needs 
to do differently to stop what's happening, but you could 
answer the second part of that question: what can the 
Government do better?
    Mr. Pizzuro. Well, the Government can do a lot better as 
far as that we're talking about today. We need a little bit 
more, first of all, uniformity, age identification, identity 
verification. There's a lot of times where the users--tomorrow, 
I can go get a phone and be whoever I want to be. I can get a 
phone, I can create an app, I can create a fake email address 
and then use it for whatever reasons I need to. So, from that 
perspective is that from the tech companies we need a little 
bit more from that moderation and that aspect: who's on what 
end of the phone?
    Senator Grassley. Okay. My next and last question will be 
to Ms. DeLaune, if I'm pronouncing your name right. Technology 
created these problems, and technology advances will be 
essential to fighting these problems in the future. So, can you 
tell me about the tools available today to address the online 
dangers to children? And what more should social media do and 
online platforms do to protect children?
    Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Senator. There are various 
initiatives and technologies that are being used by some social 
media companies, certainly not all. And because of these tools, 
such as searching surgically for known child sexual abuse 
material, companies are able to surface it. There are other 
companies that are voluntarily choosing to look for online 
enticement and instances where children might be sextorted 
online, where offenders target them for imagery or for 
financial gain.
    There's an important aspect of companies being transparent 
of what tools they're using, not only for the consumer to 
understand what platforms are doing, but also to share with one 
another what the best practices are. When everyone is speaking 
freely, we're able not only to see what works but also what 
significant gaps still exist.
    Senator Grassley. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Senator Graham [presiding]. Senator Coons.
    Senator Coons. Thank you, and thank you to Chair Durbin and 
to Ranking Member Graham for both convening this hearing and 
for your ongoing work to find a bipartisan path forward. Ms. 
Bride and Ms. Lembke, thank you for your testimony today and 
for making clear and purposeful what we all know, which is that 
far too many Americans are spending time on social media and, 
in particular for young Americans, it can have harmful, even 
destructive or toxic impact.
    We have limited research about exactly what the effects are 
of the design choices that social media platforms are making on 
childhood development and on children's mental health. We all 
know they design their platforms to hold our attention longer 
and longer, and we know, from your testimony and, many of us, 
through personal exposure, that it is not helpful, but we need 
to better understand why it's harmful and how it's harmful so 
we can craft solutions that will move us forward.
    I've worked with Senators Klobuchar and Cassidy on a 
bipartisan bill, the Platform Accountability and Transparency 
Act, that would make social media companies work with 
independent researchers to validate and ensure that we 
understand how these platforms impact our children. The Surgeon 
General of the United States came and spent a day with us in 
Delaware and visited a youth center and listened to some of our 
youth from Delaware and some mental health professionals and 
public health professionals, to talk about this nationwide 
public health crisis.
    Dr. Prinstein, you call in your testimony for greater 
transparency and reporting requirements for social media 
companies, including better data access for researchers. What 
kinds of questions about children's mental health would we be 
able to answer, with greater data access, and what data do 
researchers need that they don't currently have access to, and 
what are the barriers for their access?
    Dr. Prinstein. Thank you so much for your question. There 
are numerous barriers. We don't have the funding to be able to 
do the research that we need to do. We actually find that the 
number of academics who are pursuing a career in research on 
social media are recruited by social media companies themselves 
and offered salaries that make it very hard to compete in an 
academic environment.
    The data that social media companies have would allow for a 
better exploration of exactly what it is that kids are viewing, 
how they're using social media, what they're seeing, how that's 
related to future behaviors, including what they log on, what 
they share, how they share that information. It would be 
tremendously valuable for scientists to be able to understand 
those questions and link it specifically to mental health. In 
fact, there is no such access right now, which is severely 
hindering our ability to work scientifically in this area.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. Mr. Golin, you also call for 
Congress to implement transparency requirements to allow 
independent researchers to better understand the impact of 
social media on young Americans. The Platform Accountability 
and Transparency Act would require platforms to disclose 
information about how their algorithms actually operate, so 
that we could conduct that research in a reliable and stable 
way. Do you agree this would help parents ultimately to make 
better-informed decisions about the social media products their 
children consume?
    Mr. Golin. I think transparency and researcher access is a 
critical piece of the equation. We shouldn't have to rely on 
courageous whistleblowers like Frances Haugen to understand 
what the companies already understand about how these 
technologies are impacting our children. So, I think it's 
incredibly important that we have transparency requirements and 
researcher access.
    I will say, though, that we can't stop there. We need, 
also, at the same time, to have a duty of care for these 
platforms to limit their data collection and what they're doing 
with that data, so I wouldn't want to see a transparency be, 
you know, kicking the other policies down the road. We need to 
limit what the platforms are doing at the same time that we get 
a view into what they're doing.
    Senator Coons. I agree with you. Look, many of us have the 
strong sense, based on testimony we hear, based on our own 
experience as parents and community leaders, that this, as 
Senator Blumenthal called it, this toxic experiment on our 
children is going badly wrong. I look forward to joining in 
support of the Kids Online Safety Act, for example, but I also 
think we need to get underway with better funded, broader 
spectrum research, so we know exactly what is happening and 
what isn't and how we can fine-tune our responses.
    Mr. Pizzuro, if I might, I appreciate your work to protect 
children by leading New Jersey's Internet Crimes Against 
Children Task Force. What were the biggest problems you faced 
when investigating leads generated by CyberTips, and how can 
Congress provide resources or improve the quality of those 
investigations?
    Mr. Pizzuro. Well, there's a lack of uniformity. So, what 
would happen is that there's so many tips--so, like, New 
Jersey, for example, I think this year had 14,000. When I was 
there in 2015, it was 2,000. And the challenge is that there 
are tips within that that will result in a significant arrest, 
but the challenge is the volume. And the ESP and the providers 
that are actually giving us that information do not give us 
that information.
    And if you go from a tip perspective, if I asked everyone 
in here who had an iPhone--we don't get any tips from Apple, 
right? So, that's, now, double that. So, I think those are the 
challenges. We need to have that better information. We need to 
have viability where we can actually protect witnesses.
    Senator Coons. Last question, if I might. Ms. DeLaune, in 
your testimony, you said most sextortion offenders are located 
outside the U.S. You mention particularly Nigeria and Cote 
d'Ivoir. How could we better work with international partners 
and law enforcement to combat this growing problem?
    Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Senator. Yes, the problem with 
sextortion--we're seeing a rapid increase of exponentially more 
reports now regarding children who are being targeted for 
money. It's aggressive. We talk to these victims, we talk to 
their parents on the phone, and it's heartbreaking. There has 
been a coordinated effort amongst law enforcement to identify 
where these offenders are coming from. This is an organized 
crime syndicate. Certainly, there are offenders all around the 
world. We are seeing that there's a criminal component with 
Nigeria and Ivory Coast in some instances.
    And we're also working with the tech companies, because the 
tech companies--it takes all partners, here, to be able to find 
the solution. And sharing elements between companies--because 
offenders and children move from platform to platform, it's 
really important to be able to share that information so we can 
stop, intervene, make an adequate, good report that law 
enforcement would then be able to safeguard a child and 
hopefully hold an offender accountable.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. Thank you all very much for your 
testimony.
    Senator Graham.
    Senator Graham. Thank you. Thank you all. It's been a very, 
very helpful hearing. Ms. Bride, after the tragic loss of your 
son, you complained to certain apps that allowed bullying 
without naming who the person was. Is that correct?
    Ms. Bride. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Graham. And what response did you get?
    Ms. Bride. I reached out to Yolo, the anonymous app that 
was used to cyberbully my son. I told them what happened to my 
son, and I asked them to follow their policies, which required 
that they reveal the identity of the cyberbully. And I was 
ignored all four times.
    Senator Graham. Okay. So, you filed a lawsuit against these 
products. Is that correct?
    Ms. Bride. Yes.
    Senator Graham. You're alleging they were unsafe?
    Ms. Bride. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Graham. Mr. Prinstein. Is that right? Thank you. 
Prinstein?
    Dr. Prinstein. Yes. I believe there are a number of----
    Senator Graham. Wait a minute. Let me ask the question 
first.
    Dr. Prinstein. Sorry.
    Senator Graham. Do you believe these products are unsafe, 
the way they're configured today, for children?
    Dr. Prinstein. The research is emerging, but we have a 
number of reasons to think that some of the features that are 
built into social media indeed are conferring harm directly to 
children.
    Senator Graham. Are you recommending to the Committee that 
these social media companies put warning labels on their 
products like we do with cigarettes?
    Dr. Prinstein. I don't think that would hurt at all.
    Senator Graham. Okay. Back to Ms. Bride. So, you sued, and 
you were knocked out of court because of Section 230, right?
    Ms. Bride. Yes.
    Senator Graham. Okay. So, how many of you--or, Mr. 
Prinstein, are you a practicing psychologist, psychiatrist?
    Dr. Prinstein. I'm a clinical psychologist. I'm not 
practicing at the moment.
    Senator Graham. Okay. Do you have a license?
    Dr. Prinstein. I do.
    Senator Graham. How many of you have a driver's license?
    [Witnesses raise hands.]
    Now, that can be taken away from you if you do certain 
things. Are any of these social media companies licensed by the 
Government? The answer is no. Is it pretty clear that Section 
230 prevents individual lawsuits against these social media 
companies? Everybody's nodding their head.
    Is there any regulatory agency in America that has the 
power to change the behavior of these companies in a meaningful 
way? The answer is no. Are there any statutes on the book today 
that you think can address the harms you've all testified 
regarding? The answer is no. You can't sue them, there's no 
agency with the power to change their behavior, and there's no 
laws on the books that would stop this abusive behavior. Is 
that a fair summary of where we're at in 2023?
    All the witnesses nodded. Do you think we can do better 
than that? Isn't that the reason you're here? The question is, 
why haven't we done better than that? Senator Blumenthal and I 
had a bill that got 25 votes on the Judiciary Committee. 
There're 25 of us. I can't think of any subject matter that 
would bring all 25 of us together. So, Mr. Chairman, in spite 
of all of our differences, let's make a pledge to these people. 
Ms.--how do you say your last name?
    Ms. Lembke. Lembke.
    Senator Graham. Do you believe that your generation, 
particularly, has been let down?
    Ms. Lembke. Yes, Senator, I do.
    Senator Graham. And you worry about future generations even 
being more harmed?
    Ms. Lembke. Yes, sir, every day.
    Senator Graham. The behavior that we're talking about is 
driven by money. In terms of social media, the more eyes, the 
more money. Is that correct? So the financial incentive of the 
social media companies exists today to do more of this, not 
less?
    Everybody nodded in the affirmative. Mr. Pizzuro, you said, 
of the platforms that sexual predators use--is Twitter one of 
them?
    Mr. Pizzuro. Yes.
    Senator Graham. Thank you.
    Mr. Pizzuro. Yes, every platform. I don't think there's a 
platform that I haven't seen used.
    Senator Graham. Okay. So, if we did a regulatory consumer 
protection agency to hold these people to account, would that 
be a step in the right direction?
    Mr. Pizzuro. I believe so, yes.
    Senator Graham. If we change Section 230 to allow more 
consumer pushback, would that be a step in the right direction?
    Everybody nodded. If we pass the Online Child Protection 
Act and the EARN IT Act, would that be a step in the right 
direction?
    Everybody nodded. Mr. Chairman, we know what to do. Let's 
just go do it.
    Chair Durbin [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Graham, and I 
accept the invitation. I might add that the Commerce Committee 
has jurisdiction on this issue, too, and I've spoken to Senator 
Cantwell. She shares the sentiment. Wouldn't it be amazing if 
Congress could do something on a bipartisan basis, and why not 
start here? So, let's continue with this hearing and with some 
resolve.
    Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and I want to 
add, again, my thanks to Senator Graham for his partnership on 
the EARN IT Act. We've worked together on this measure that 
recognizes the excessive breadth of Section 230, and the idea 
of the EARN IT Act is very simple: that if any company wants to 
have any defense or immunity against legal action, it has to 
earn it. It has to earn it. That's why we named it the EARN IT 
Act. And it is a beginning. It's a step, not a stride. But it 
will mark major progress if we are able to pass this measure, 
and I am grateful to the Chairman for his support, Senator 
Grassley for his.
    I'm going to embarrass myself a little bit. I began working 
on this problem when Big Tech was Little Tech, and NCMEC was so 
importantly helpful in this effort, and it has continued. So, I 
want to thank NCMEC for your continued support and work in this 
area.
    And to Emma Lembke, Log Off is exactly what we need. And 
I'm going to go a little bit outside my lane, here, and suggest 
that we have you and a number of your supporters and members 
back here and that we do a little lobbying with you talking to 
my colleagues, which I think will overcome the massive number 
of lobbyists and lawyers that now Big Tech has.
    And, you know, Kristin, you have been such an eloquent and 
moving advocate, but like you, so have been many of the other 
parents. They've sat with Senator Blackburn and me, and those 
conversations and meetings have been some of the most really 
powerful moments, so I would invite you again to come back. I 
know that, for both of you and for others in this position, 
it's difficult to do, because you're reliving that pain. You 
are going through that loss. And so I want to thank you for 
your continuing effort, and I'd like to invite you back, too.
    The EARN IT Act and the Kids Online Safety Act are the 
least we can do, the very least we can do, to help begin 
protecting against Big Tech. And the Chairman has suggested 
that maybe we'll have Big Tech come back. Frankly, I'm less 
interested in Big Tech's words than Big Tech's actions, because 
they've said again and again and again, Oh, well, we're for 
regulation, but just not that regulation. And if it's different 
regulation, Oh, well, that's not quite it, either. So, we're 
going to continue this work, and my thanks to everybody who is 
here today.
    I want to ask Dr. Prinstein, because this report that the 
CDC came out with today talks not only about girls, and the 
crisis they are going through in this country, but also about 
LGBTQ+ young people and how they, particularly, are going 
through this crisis. Could you describe for the Committee how 
the addictive and harmful content affects them maybe more than 
others, either through bullying or other kinds of toxic content 
driven at them?
    Dr. Prinstein. Absolutely. Thank you. The LGBT+ community 
is experiencing a disproportionate amount of mental health 
issues, particularly related to the stress they experience as a 
marginalized or minoritized group. They are also experiencing a 
much higher rate of self-harm and suicide compared to others.
    The research on social media has demonstrated a remarkably 
high proportion of posts that are discriminatory or hateful 
either to the entire LGBT+ community or to individuals based on 
their LGBTQ+ status. So, it's very important to recognize that 
online discrimination does have an effect on mental health 
directly. It is important, however, to recognize that the 
online community also provides vital health information and 
does provide social support that can be beneficial to this 
community, so it's a complex situation but one that deserves 
tremendous attention. Thank you.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you. Thank you to all the panel 
for being here today. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the 
witnesses for being here today. As I've been listening to the 
testimony, it's just another reminder of how frustrating and 
maddening and, frankly, infuriating it is that Congress has 
been unable to deal with this in a more timely and a more 
targeted manner, but I'm also reminded of the fact that 
technology does not move at the speed of legislation, and it 
seems like the people who profit from this technology, these 
apps, are very adaptable to whatever obstacle, whatever penalty 
that Congress might impose.
    But, Mr. Pizzuro, I think it was you that made a comment. 
It really jumped out at me. You said, ``We ought to make use of 
children's data illegal.'' Did you say that?
    Mr. Pizzuro. I'm sorry, Senator. No, I didn't.
    Senator Cornyn. Excuse me. Doctor----
    Mr. Pizzuro. Yes.
    Senator Cornyn. Doctor, you said that.
    Dr. Prinstein. Yes.
    Senator Cornyn. Okay. And in thinking about the model, the 
business model of these apps, they're primarily designed to 
hoover up data, including personal data, and then use that data 
then to apply algorithms to it, to provide additional 
enticement or encouragement for people to continue using that 
app. Is that correct, Doctor?
    Dr. Prinstein. Yes, it is.
    Senator Cornyn. And so if we were able to figure out how to 
make use of a minor's data illegal and had appropriate 
penalties, that would attack the business model and go after 
the people who profit from this technology, correct?
    Dr. Prinstein. I believe so.
    Senator Cornyn. Well, maybe there's something fairly 
straightforward we could do in that area, because as I said, 
obviously legislation moves very slowly, and the people who 
profit and benefit from this sort of technology are very 
adaptable and move at a much different speed than we do.
    Ms. Bride, we all grieve with you over your loss of your 
son, but in listening to your testimony, it seems to me that 
you did just about everything that a parent might do to protect 
your child, but yet you weren't able to completely protect him 
from the cyberbullying. Can you talk a little more about the 
role of parents in protecting their children? And are there 
other things that parents should do, that you weren't able to 
do or didn't occur to you at the time?
    Ms. Bride. Thank you for the question, Senator. Yes, 
parents absolutely have a role, like we took, in talking to 
their kids about online safety and managing screen time, but 
we're at a situation right now where, if I can give you all a 
visual, it is like a firehose of harmful content being sprayed 
at our kids every day, and it's constantly changing. And I wish 
I could testify and say, ``All you have to do as a parent is 
these five things and you can hand the phone over and your kid 
will be safe.'' But that would be irresponsible of me and this 
is why we need to go back to the source.
    The source of the harm is the social media companies and 
their dangerous and addictive products that are designed to 
keep our kids online as much as possible. And in the example of 
anonymous apps, what better way to keep kids online but let 
them, in a public forum, say whatever they want to each other 
without their names attached?
    Senator Cornyn. Dr. Prinstein, you make the point about 
needing more investment in mental health studies and resources. 
You're probably aware of this, but I'll just remind you and 
remind all of us that, in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act 
that Congress passed last summer, we made the single largest 
investment in community-based mental health care in American 
history, together with additional resources for schools. In 
that context, it was in the wake of the shooting at Uvalde and 
the obvious failure of the mental health safety net, such as it 
exists, to deal with young men, in this case, who fit a 
dangerous profile of self-harm or harm to others.
    But could you speak briefly to the workforce challenges? If 
we make these huge investments in mental health care, we need 
people to be able to provide that care, trained professionals 
and other associated professionals. And where are we today, in 
terms of providing that sort of a trained workforce to deal 
with the need?
    Dr. Prinstein. Thank you so much for the investments that 
you all have made so far. Unfortunately, it's just a start. The 
Federal Government currently funds the training of physicians 
at a number 750 times more than the amount that's invested in 
mental health professionals. The CDC report that you just saw 
and a number of Senators have discussed is likely a direct 
product of that disparity. It's critical that we are funding 
psychologists and other mental health providers with the same 
commitment and at the same level that we do our physician 
workforce and think about physical health.
    Also, thank you for noting the importance of the slowness 
by which our progress is in the social media area as compared 
to the rapid way in which social media changes. This is also 
why a commitment to research on the effects of social media on 
mental health is so urgent now, because for us to do a study to 
learn how social media will affect kids over many years, it 
will take many years to do that study. So, we must start 
immediately investing much more in that research. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cornyn.
    I'd also like to recognize the presence of former House 
Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt and former Lieutenant Governor 
Healey of Massachusetts for being here today and their work on 
the bipartisan Council for Responsible Social Media. Thank you 
for joining us.
    Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, and let me double down on 
that welcome to Maura Healey for her work as attorney general, 
because my questions are going to be about the legal situation 
here. Ms. Bride, you mentioned in your testimony that your 
class action lawsuit was thrown out in large part because of 
Section 230 immunity. Is that correct?
    Ms. Bride. Yes, that is correct.
    Senator Whitehouse. So, we're having kind of a bipartisan 
moment here today with the Blumenthal-Blackburn legislation, 
with the Durbin-Graham hearing, and I would be prepared to make 
a bet that if we took a vote on a plain Section 230 repeal, it 
would clear this Committee with virtually every vote. The 
problem, where we bog down, is that we want 230 plus. We want 
to repeal 230 and then have X, Y, Z, and we don't agree on what 
the X, Y, Z are.
    I would encourage each of you, if you wish, to take a 
moment when the hearing is over and write down what you would 
like to see with respect to Section 230. If this is not your 
area, fine. Don't bother. Would you be happy with a flat 
Section 230 repeal? Would you like to see Section 230 repealed 
with one, two, or three other things added? What would your 
recommendations be, as we look at this?
    It strikes me that, when you repeal Section 230, you revert 
to a body of law that has stood the test of hundreds of years 
of experience, hundreds and thousands of trials in courtrooms 
around the country, and we know pretty well how to deal with 
it. And we've also had the experience of honest courtrooms 
being very important when powerful forces full of lies need to 
be brought to heel. And nobody knows better than Dick 
Blumenthal the tragedy of the families of Sandy Hook and the 
lies that were told about what took place that day, and it took 
an honest courtroom to hold the prime liar in all of that 
accountable.
    And there was a lot of lying told about the Dominion 
corporation, and it took an honest courtroom--trial's still 
under way, discovery's still happening, but in the honest 
courtroom, you have the chance to dig down and see, what were 
the lies, and who should be held accountable, rather than just 
have it all be fought out in the noise of the internet and the 
public debate. So, to me it seems like an enormous amount of 
progress would be made if we would repeal Section 230. And your 
thoughts on that, from each of you, would be very compelling.
    If there's something somebody would like to say right now, 
I've got 2 minutes left, and you're welcome to jump in, I mean, 
if you just can't hold back and you've got your answer ready. 
But I'd really be interested in the considered judgment of 
anybody who would care to answer about what the world would 
look like if Section 230 weren't there.
    Ms. Bride?
    Ms. Bride. Thank you, Senator. I would like to see a 
minimum of Section 230 repealed to the point where these 
companies can be held accountable for their own policies that 
lure kids into their products, like in the case of the 
anonymous apps: We monitor for cyberbullying, and we reveal the 
identities of those who do so. If you have that policy as a 
company, you need to be able to follow it, like every other 
industry in America.
    Senator Whitehouse. Yes.
    Ms. Bride. Thank you.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you. Yes, the things we're 
looking at, I think, most closely here are, first, the company 
owns its own policies and ought to be accountable for them. 
That has nothing to do with something that pops up and then 
gets put on a platform, and when should they be accountable for 
what's on the platform? These are the basic operating systems 
designed by them, of their platform, and they should own that, 
period, end of story.
    And the other is when they're on notice. When something is 
up on their platform and they know perfectly well that it's up 
there and they know perfectly well that it's dangerous, and 
they don't bother to deal with it responsibly because they know 
that they won't be held accountable, they can do whatever they 
please to try to generate clicks off even dangerous content--
so, those are the areas we're looking at, and I look forward to 
hearing the advice from this terrific panel.
    And I want to thank Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member 
Graham for hosting this. Senator Blackburn had stepped out and 
returned now. Let me just say thank you to her and to Senator 
Blumenthal for your terrific work together.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. Senator 
Blackburn, you're next.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
to each of you. We are glad you're here. For everyone on the 
panel--and you can just give me a thumbs-up--and I am making 
the assumption that you all support the Kids Online Safety Act.
    Okay, the record will reflect y'all are all for it. And we 
appreciate that. We think it is necessary. Thank you to each of 
you for your testimony and also for your advocacy. We 
appreciate this.
    Ms. DeLaune, I want to come to you, if I may. The END Child 
Exploitation Act that I had filed last Congress, and we have 
this back up again--this is something that we've done because 
what we realize is the necessity for child exploitation to be 
reported to NCMEC's CyberTipline. And the bill unanimously 
passed through the Senate last year, and we are hopeful to get 
it finished. So, give me just about 30 seconds on why this bill 
is so important.
    Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for your 
leadership on this particular Act.
    Senator Blackburn. Sure.
    Ms. DeLaune. One of the most important components is the 
extension of the retention period. Many of the ESPs obviously--
when they're making reports to us, the tech companies--from the 
moment they make the report, there is a 90-day retention notice 
that the companies agree to wait and hold that material if law 
enforcement chooses to serve legal process and gather more 
details.
    As we've demonstrated with the exponential growth in 
numbers and the number of law enforcement leads that we are 
sending out, it is simply not enough time for law enforcement 
to be able to assess a report and determine whether or not an 
investigation must ensue. So, extending the data retention is 
an important part of this Act.
    Senator Blackburn. And that was a wonderful suggestion that 
came to us from advocates, to extend that, because it takes 
longer sometimes for individuals to come forward and for law 
enforcement to piece that together, and the goal is to keep our 
children safe.
    Ms. DeLaune. Yes.
    Senator Blackburn. So, we appreciate that. Ms. Bride, I 
want to come to you again. And, as always, we know how you 
grieve your loss, and our sympathies are with you but also our 
action, to get something done. Let's talk about fentanyl and 
the impact of fentanyl and the way children have met, whether 
it's on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube. We have worked on 
this issue about how these platforms need to be held 
accountable for the illegal activity that is taking place.
    And you spoke beautifully about Carson and the bullying 
that was taking place with him, but we also know from other 
parents that you and I have met with that the introduction to 
drugs, the acquaintances they think are children and then they 
find out that they're being groomed to be pulled in to using 
drugs or they're being groomed to be pulled into sex 
trafficking. And that is one of the dangers that are there, 
that luring and that addiction of social media. And, Emma, you 
spoke so well to that, and we thank you.
    But let's talk a little bit about how we should be 
protecting children from meeting these drug dealers and pushers 
and traffickers online and how easy it has become for these 
people to impersonate children and to then ruin the lives of 
our children. Go ahead. I'd like for you to speak to that. I 
know your advocacy is in that vein.
    Ms. Bride. Thank you, Senator. When we have met with other 
parents--and you've been in the room, as well--we have parents 
who have lost their children to fentanyl-laced drugs, and the 
frustration with them is they also can't get the drug dealers 
taken off the platform. I think I would defer to somebody else 
on this topic, to speak, as that's not my specific area of 
expertise.
    Senator Blackburn. Yes. Ms. Bride, let me ask you this, and 
for any of you. For parents that have lost their kids to drug 
dealers, do any of you know of a drug dealer that has been 
apprehended, charged, indicted, convicted?
    No. Isn't that amazing? It goes back to Senator Graham's 
point that something needs to be done about this. They're using 
social media as their platform.
    Dr. Prinstein--oh, Mr. Chairman, my time is out. I guess I 
will need to yield back to you. I had one more question, so----
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Senator Hirono.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank all of 
the panelists and everyone in the audience and those who are 
watching these proceedings. What I get, of course, is the utter 
frustration that you all are sharing with us, and of course I 
thank my colleague for her advocacy in getting something done. 
Dr. Prinstein, there is a definition for addiction, and would 
you say that the millions of young people who are on social 
media--that they are exhibiting what amounts to an addiction to 
these platforms?
    Dr. Prinstein. Within the science community, we're debating 
over the use of that word a little bit right now, to depict 
social media, but I do think there's agreement that there is 
clearly a dependency on social media which we can see in kids 
suffering from many of the same symptoms that we see in the 
DSM, the diagnostic manual, for an addiction to substances. It 
seems to apply quite well to the description of kids' behavior 
and dependency on social media.
    Senator Hirono. And the additional danger to an addiction 
to social media is that this is such a negative kind of 
information that they can get. They're bullied, they're 
hassled, there are all kinds of horribly negative kinds of 
messages that they get from this particular addiction, which 
may be, you know, a little bit different. So, we do have 
treatments, normally, for addiction. Do we have treatments for 
addiction to social media?
    Dr. Prinstein. I don't believe those have been adequately 
studied.
    Senator Hirono. And we probably should study it. And that 
gets me to Ms. Lembke. You started on social media at sixth 
grade, was it? Would you say that you were addicted to social 
media?
    Ms. Lembke. I will say that I exhibited--and thank you for 
your question, Senator--a dependency that was stated here 
today, but I do not think that I alone can define what that 
addiction means. I think that other members of my generation 
and other young voices should be integrated into these ongoing 
conversations, into what constitutes an addiction, moving 
forward.
    Senator Hirono. Well, did you have a hard time not going to 
social media on a regular basis, on a daily basis? You spent up 
to 6 hours----
    Ms. Lembke. Absolutely.
    Senator Hirono [continuing]. On these platforms? So, 
regardless of what the medical definition might be, that when 
you're spending 6 hours on a platform that didn't make you feel 
terribly good about yourself--so, how was it that you finally 
broke yourself of this dependency?
    Ms. Lembke. Thank you, Senator, for your question. It took 
getting to a breaking point, where my anxiety was so great, my 
depression was incredibly acute, and my issues with disordered 
eating were rampant. It took about 3 to 4 years, getting into 
the ninth grade, where one day I heard the buzz of a 
notification, and I had the Pavlovian response to instantly 
grab for it, and suddenly, in that moment, I asked why. Why was 
I allowing these companies to have so much control over me? And 
that question has led to many more and has gotten me here today 
to speak up about the importance of having youth voices at the 
legislative table.
    Senator Hirono. So, I appreciate your mentioning that, your 
sort of, the light going off in your head--is that the kind of 
experience that a lot of young people who are so dependent on 
these platforms--that they can, of their own will, decide, I 
just can't take this anymore? Or is that one of the reasons 
that you created Log Off? Can you tell us a little bit more 
about what your program or the movement does to help young 
people?
    Ms. Lembke. Yes, Senator. Thank you. I think each young 
person who struggles with this issue comes at it from a very 
different angle. For me, it took reaching that breaking point. 
For others, they continue to be harmed, and that was the reason 
I created Log Off. It was to seek out other young people who 
were frustrated, who were struggling, who were angry and wanted 
to talk to each other across our generation, members who 
understand the experience better than any other group of people 
across this world. So, I created that body in order to have 
those conversations and to work collectively to move forward in 
building effective solutions and in discussing those 
complexities in the online world and living through a digital 
childhood.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you very much for your stepping up. I 
only have a little bit of time. I want to get to Ms. Bride. 
There's been a lot of discussion about Section 230. A number of 
us have bills to reform Section 230, as do I. I think one of 
the concerns, though, is that the wholesale elimination of 
Section 230, which--I mean, I do support, you know, holding 
these platforms responsible for the kind of hugely harmful 
content, but it does get into First Amendment freedom of speech 
issues.
    So, we need to be very aware that, as we reform Section 230 
to enable, I would say, lawsuits like yours to proceed, that we 
do it in a careful way, to avoid unintended consequences. But I 
just want to share with you our deepest sympathies for what you 
continue to endure, and the rest of you. Thank you very much 
for your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Lee.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. DeLaune, I'd like 
to start with you, if that's all right. NCMEC does a great job 
of highlighting a lot of these problems and the pervasiveness 
of CSAM, through the CyberTipline. It's my understanding that 
about 32 million reports of CSAM were reported to the 
CyberTipline last year, and I believe you said in your 
testimony that, of those 32 million reports, only about 6 
percent can be referred to U.S. Federal or U.S. local law 
enforcement here in our country. Is that right?
    Ms. DeLaune. That is correct, Senator.
    Senator Lee. So, of the 32 million reports that we start 
with, we're already down to about 3.2 million that can be 
actionable here, that could be reported to law enforcement 
here. Would you be comfortable estimating about how many of 
those 32 million images of CSAM end up being removed from the 
internet? I think you said in your testimony somewhere that it 
was maybe 55 percent of those, so I'm guessing 1.7 million?
    Ms. DeLaune. We have a lot of numbers. So, for 32 million 
reports that are coming in the door, the reports are coming in 
from the tech industry, mostly, in addition to public reports. 
They are reporting users who are using U.S. platforms to 
transmit child sexual abuse material. Clearly, we have global 
companies here in the United States, so approximately 90 
percent of the leads that are coming in are going back to other 
countries where offenders are uploading child sexual abuse 
material.
    Senator Lee. Got you.
    Ms. DeLaune. So, we're down to a smaller amount of about 
3.6 million reports here in the United States that we are able 
to refer to law enforcement. It goes to the point of--there is 
a lot of disparity and a long line of issues that will impact 
actionability of a CyberTipline report.
    There are some basic key things that are necessary and are 
currently voluntary for tech companies to provide. That would 
be the images or videos or the content that meets the standard 
of apparent child pornography; it would be baseline information 
regarding the geographic location of where law enforcement 
should be reviewing this lead, to determine if an investigation 
should ensue; basic information on a user who uploaded the 
child sexual abuse imagery; and, if a victim existed, if they 
have any information. That's the baseline information that law 
enforcement needs.
    We estimate, of the reports that we were able to provide to 
law enforcement last year, 55 percent of them may have been 
actionable, meaning they meet all of those criteria, which 
tells us there's a lot of improvement that can happen at the 
beginning of the pipeline, that quality information coming in, 
so law enforcement can make proper assessments.
    Senator Lee. That makes a lot of sense. Now, Mr. Pizzuro, 
you've done some fantastic work helping kids who were in actual 
or imminent danger. I know that rescuing kids who are in 
distress should be a priority. I'm guessing that the removal of 
the CSAM images from the internet can't take quite as high of a 
priority as rescuing the kids from imminent danger. Is that the 
case?
    Mr. Pizzuro. That's true, and one of the things is, you 
know, from the investigative standpoint, is those proactive 
cases where we're really targeting those egregious offenders.
    Senator Lee. Got you. Yes, that makes sense. Look, bottom 
line: pornography is very bad. It's especially bad for young 
people. I think it's bad for everyone, but it subjects young 
people to significant and somewhat unique harms. It's bad 
enough that children were abused to make these images in the 
first place, but every single time these images are viewed or 
shared, a child's retraumatized again.
    It's one of the reasons why, last year, I introduced a bill 
called the PROTECT Act. This is a bill that would require any 
websites hosting pornographic material on a commercial scale to 
put in place a removal mechanism and remove images at the 
request of the individual who appears in them. It would also 
require websites to verify the age of individuals appearing in 
pornographic material, and also they would have to verify 
consent. They'd be also penalized for hosting CSAM and any 
other items that were in there that shouldn't be, and then 
their victims or their authorized representatives could 
petition for those images to be removed from the website. And I 
think that would help with that.
    Mr. DeLaune, in your testimony you mentioned that current 
law needs to be changed--Ms. DeLaune, I'm sorry--that it needs 
to be changed in order to help CSAM be able to share those 
images, help people be able to share those images with CSAM and 
with law enforcement. And I'd be happy to work with you on 
that, to get that done and to incorporate that into my bill, 
the PROTECT Act.
    One more thing. These things are all important, and that's 
why, at the end of last year, I also introduced another bill 
called the SCREEN Act. This bill would require that any 
commercial website hosting pornographic images has to verify 
the age of users on their site and block minors from viewing 
graphic material. I look forward to working with my colleagues 
and the witnesses before us today and the organizations they 
represent, to get those bills across the finish line.
    Finally, I just want to thank you, Ms. Bride, and you, Ms. 
Lembke, for sharing your stories on difficult, heart-wrenching 
circumstances. Thank you.
    Senator Ossoff [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Lee. I'll be 
managing time for a moment while Chair Durbin votes, and I'm up 
next, followed by Senator Kennedy. I want to thank our panel 
for your testimony, in particular Ms. Bride, to you, for 
bringing your advocacy to the Senate amidst this nightmare that 
you and your family have lived and continue to live. And, Ms. 
Lembke, thank you for your extraordinarily well considered and 
powerful testimony.
    Ms. DeLaune, as you know and as you mentioned in your 
opening statement, Senator Grassley and I have legislation to 
strengthen Federal protections against sexual abuse of 
children, including online exploitation. And we were able to 
pass that legislation through the Senate last Congress, with 
bipartisan support; not yet through the House. We're hoping to 
do that this Congress, with your help.
    And a key aspect of this bill is to ensure that the law's 
keeping up with technology and to ensure that when abusers use 
webcams or online messaging platforms to target children, that 
the full strength of Federal law can be brought to bear to 
prosecute them and to protect children from other crimes. Can 
you describe briefly, please, Ms. DeLaune, the necessity of 
ensuring that relevant Federal statutes keep up with technology 
and how these threats evolve?
    Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for your 
leadership on that with Senator Grassley. We look forward to, 
you know, continuing to work with you and your staff.
    It is important, as we're talking about the continual 
evolution of threats to our children. Technology, it was 
mentioned earlier, moves much faster than the legislative 
process, and it's very important and encouraging to be here 
today to hear from all of you kind of leading the charge, here, 
of ensuring that our legislative proposals and legislative 
pieces that you're considering are actually matching the 
technology.
    What you mentioned, Senator, about live streaming that's 
being considered in your bill--we have seen an evolution with 
children being sexually exploited where there is not a physical 
abuser who is actually physically touching them. And we need to 
ensure that the legislation actually reflects that children are 
being exploited, children are being sexually victimized by 
individuals in different countries and different States and 
different rooms.
    And this is something that we continue to see, where 
offenders are moving children from social media platforms, 
maybe where they introduce and then move them to a different 
platform where they would have live abuse ability, as well as 
individuals who are selling children for sexual performance 
online. So, thank you for recognizing that evolution of 
technology needs to be reflected in the legislation.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. DeLaune. And the same 
legislation that I've offered with Senator Grassley also 
strengthens law enforcement as they prosecute those who cross 
State lines or international lines to abuse children. What are 
you seeing now in terms of trends and dynamics in so-called sex 
tourism, particularly as it pertains to the abuse of children?
    Ms. DeLaune. Sex tourism. Certainly, you still have people 
who are traveling to other countries, taking advantage of lax 
laws and poverty to sexually exploit children. We do, of 
course, see now an increase--if you want to call it sex 
tourism, of individuals who are virtually streaming, live 
streaming, sexually exploiting children in impoverished 
countries and paying them via, you know, online apps. So, this 
is something that we continue to see as a problem actually 
getting worse because of the new ways that people can 
communicate live streaming.
    Senator Ossoff. Well, our bipartisan legislation, as you 
know, will help to crack down on online abusers, as well as 
those who cross State lines or international lines to attack 
children. I thank you for your continued support for the 
legislation.
    Finally, just briefly, Senator Blackburn ran out of time 
and had another question that she wanted to ask. I want to make 
sure to get that to Dr. Prinstein. And, Ms. Lembke, you, in a 
very candid and personal way, described the impact that the use 
of these technologies had on your psyche. And I know that, in 
particular for other young people around the country, they've 
experienced the same dynamic, the formation of dependence, the 
impact on self-image and mental health. And I thank you for 
sharing your story.
    And I want to ask you, Dr. Prinstein, if you could just 
speak for a moment about the long-term negative psychological 
impact that, in particular, young people can experience as a 
result of their use of social media and how we in Congress 
should think about addressing that.
    Dr. Prinstein. Scientists are working as fast as we can to 
give you those answers. It's something that requires us to 
follow kids as they mature and see how it is that they develop.
    We do know that there are numerous online communities and 
opportunities to engage with content that actually teaches kids 
how to cut themselves, how to engage in behaviors that are 
consistent with an eating disorder, how to conceal these 
behaviors from their parents and adults, and they sanction 
young people when they discuss the possibility of engaging in 
an adaptive rather than maladaptive behaviors. Many of these 
online posts and communities have no warnings, no trigger 
warnings to indicate that these might be concerning for kids. 
And, of course, that's something that is directly associated 
with kids' likelihood of engaging in these maladaptive 
behaviors themselves.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Dr. Prinstein. Deeply disturbing 
and certainly warrants regulatory attention. Appreciate your 
testimony. Senator Kennedy, you're next for 5 minutes.
    Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Senator. Many of the companies 
that we're talking about are American companies. Not all Big 
Tech is American, but we certainly led the way. These companies 
are very successful. They're very big, they're very powerful. 
They're really no longer companies--they're countries. And 
they're going to oppose any of this type legislation. It's why 
virtually nothing with respect to Big Tech has passed in the 
last 5 years.
    I want to be fair. I think that social media has made our 
world smaller, which is a good thing, but it has made our world 
courser. And if I had to name one fault, it wouldn't be the 
only one, but I would say that social media has lowered the 
cost of being an A-hole. People say things on social media that 
they would never say in an interpersonal exchange. Adults, even 
though it's depressing sometimes, can deal with that. It's hard 
for young people.
    We've talked about a number of problems that are presented 
by social media: data, privacy, sexual exploitation, but also 
mental health and the impact that I think it's clearly having 
on, particularly, young women in the Gen Z generation, 10 or 11 
to 25 and 26. They're living their lives on social media, and 
they're not developing interpersonal relationships. It's making 
them very fragile. It's reaffirming this culture of victimhood. 
They're not getting ready for the world.
    So, let me cut to the chase. I'll start with Mr.--am I 
saying it right? Golin?
    Mr. Golin. Golin.
    Senator Kennedy. Golin. I apologize. For young people 
defined as people under the age of 16, should we just abolish 
social media for them, don't let them access it?
    Mr. Golin. You know, things are so serious that I----
    Senator Kennedy. Can you give me some quick answers? 
Because I'm----
    Mr. Golin. Yes.
    Senator Kennedy [continuing]. Going to go down the line.
    Mr. Golin. We should consider all options, but I think we 
should focus--it makes more sense to focus on a duty of care 
and changing how these platforms operate. Practically, keeping 
kids off, under 16, may be impossible, and I would also say 
it's not just social media. A lot of these things happen on 
video game platforms, as well.
    Senator Kennedy. And you think it'll really be easy to 
change the attitudes of these social media companies?
    Mr. Golin. If you create a duty of care and you limit the 
data that they can collect.
    Senator Kennedy. All right. I think they have a duty to 
care, already. What about you, Doctor?
    Dr. Prinstein. I think we desperately need to educate 
parents.
    Senator Kennedy. I know we need to educate, but should we 
just tell kids, ``Look, it's a lot like alcohol. This stuff is 
addictive and until you're 16, you can't access social media''?
    Dr. Prinstein. There are benefits that also come from 
social media, and I don't know whether it's realistic to keep 
kids off of it completely. I think practicing moderation, with 
close parental supervision, with substantial education coming 
from the school and the home---
    Senator Kennedy. Here's a news flash for you. A lot of 
parents don't care, Doctor. Mr. Pizzuro?
    Mr. Pizzuro. Yes, Senator. Basically, there should be 
something--if I bought a phone tomorrow--there should be at 
least, at the very least, a terms of agreement. I can't even 
access that phone until I go through a 3-minute or 5-minute 
video.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. Ms. DeLaune?
    Ms. DeLaune. An acknowledgment that, when you build a tool 
that allows adults and children to communicate with one another 
or find connections, that there is a duty of care to ensure 
that you're creating a safe environment for those kids.
    Senator Kennedy. Well, I think there's clearly a duty of 
care. The issue is how to enforce a duty of care. Go try to 
pass a bill enforcing that duty of care in the United States 
Congress and see what the reaction----
    Ms. DeLaune. Right.
    Senator Kennedy [continuing]. From Big Tech is.
    Ms. DeLaune. Right. Absolutely. And creating these tools, 
recognizing that these incidents are going to happen and 
finding ways that children----
    Senator Kennedy. Well, would you----
    Ms. DeLaune [continuing]. Can report them.
    Senator Kennedy [continuing]. Support a law that says, 
Okay, if you're under 16, you can't access social media?
    Ms. DeLaune. I think it would be difficult. There are 
positive things about social media, but there are many, many 
terrible things that kids are finding themselves in bad shape.
    Senator Kennedy. You say it would be hard. I know it'd be 
hard. Do you think it's a wise thing to do?
    Ms. DeLaune. I believe if the tools are designed properly, 
there could be benefits.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. I can't have my--I don't have my 
glasses on. Yes, ma'am, your answer, please?
    Ms. Lembke. Yes, Senator. I have not spent a lot of time 
thinking about specifically the right age to enter, because I 
do not think that it addresses the fundamental question we must 
answer, how to create online spaces that are safer when kids 
decide to enter, because I can tell you that these age 
restrictions----
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. Is that a no?
    Ms. Lembke. Sorry, Senator?
    Senator Kennedy. Do you think we should prevent kids under 
the age of 16 from accessing social media?
    Ms. Lembke. I think that we should spend more time looking 
at how to make those platforms safer, because kids will 
circumnavigate age restrictions.
    Senator Kennedy. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Bride. And I agree with Ms. Lembke, as well. I think 
that safeguards is the way to go. If we look historically at 
the automobile industry, it was not safe, but we brought in 
seat belts, air bags, and now it is much safer. And we can do 
that with this industry.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin [presiding]. Senator Klobuchar.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, 
thank you so much. This has been an incredible hearing. And, as 
you know, I'm involved in this issue. I thank Senator 
Blumenthal for his work and Senator Blackburn and so many 
others.
    So, I would agree we need rules of the road. We need rules 
of the road for everything from what we're talking about here 
for kids to privacy to competition, because there's just no 
rules of the road. As Senator Kennedy has expressed, we have 
tried in many ways and passed a number of bills in this 
Committee. I believe one of these days they're going to start 
to pass, because the social media companies have stopped 
everything in their tracks that we have tried to do.
    And I think it is important--I guess I would start with 
that--that they are companies, and they are media corporations, 
basically. And I try to explain to people that if you put 
something online or put it on a--one person does it, that's 
bad. That's one thing. Or if you yell, ``Fire,'' in a crowded 
theater, okay, that's on you. But if the multiplex were to take 
that yelling, ``Fire,'' and put it in all their theaters with 
an intercom so everyone could hear it, that's a whole nother 
thing. And that's a problem that hasn't been solved when it 
comes to these companies. They are profiting off the repeating 
of this information and the spreading of this information.
    So, Mr. Golin, I'd just ask you this. In addition to 
setting the rules of the road that we want to do, when we talk 
about auto companies and all these other areas, at some point 
people have been able to sue them for problems. And right now 
these companies are completely immune. Do you want to get at 
that and talk about your views on that?
    Mr. Golin. Yes. I think that's a huge piece of the 
equation--is the ability of parents and young people themselves 
to hold these companies accountable. You know, Kristin talked 
about her lawsuit being thrown out. We work with Tawainna 
Anderson, whose 10-year-old daughter died after attempting the 
viral choking challenge which TikTok put into her ``For You'' 
feed. It's not something she was searching for. TikTok's 
decided that this was the piece of content that would be most 
appealing to her at that time. And their case was thrown out of 
court for Section 230 reasons, as well.
    Senator Klobuchar. Right.
    Mr. Golin. So----
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. I just want to make that clear. 
The rules are good, but I'm telling you, if you just pretend 
that they are a loftier-than-any-other-company class that can't 
be sued for anything, we're never going to get a lot of these 
things done. So, let's be honest about that.
    The Respect for Child Survivors Act is something Senator 
Cornyn and I passed. Mr. Prinstein, do you agree that it's 
important for mental health professionals to be involved in 
interviews of child survivors? This is this idea that whatever 
the crime--I was a prosecutor for quite a while--sexual abuse, 
whatever, it's important to have a coordinated effort when it 
comes to interviewing kids.
    Dr. Prinstein. Yes, absolutely. There's a clear 
psychological science around how to do that in safe and 
appropriate ways.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you. The issue of eating 
disorders--I'll go back to you, Mr. Golin. Studies have found 
that the eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of 
any mental illness. I think that surprises people. I led the 
Anna Westin Act, and last year, of course, thanks to Senator 
Blumenthal, we heard--and Senator Blackburn--from Frances 
Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, about Instagram's own 
internal research on eating disorders. You talk about that 
connection between the internet and eating disorders. Do you 
want to quickly comment on that connection and why that should 
be part of our focus here?
    Mr. Golin. Yes. So, what happens is when girls or anyone, 
really, expresses any interest in dieting or dissatisfaction 
with their body, they get barraged by content recommendations 
for pro-eating-disorder content, because that's what's going to 
keep them engaged. So, we need to create a duty of care that 
these platforms have of, you know, a duty to prevent and 
mitigate harmful eating-disorder content and not push it on 
kids. I mean, I think that's one of the really important 
things: to distinguish between queries, where people might be 
interested in getting some information, versus what is being 
actually pushed in their feed. And frequently it is the worst, 
most harmful content that's being pushed in their feed.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Ms. DeLaune, Senator Cornyn and I 
did a lot of work on human trafficking, as you know; passed 
that original bill to create incentives for safe harbor laws. 
Can you talk about how the internet has changed the way that 
human traffickers target and exploit kids?
    Ms. DeLaune. Yes. Thank you, Senator. Human trafficking and 
child sex trafficking, in particular, has certainly been fueled 
by online platforms and the connectivity between offenders and 
children. Not only does it make buyers--it makes it easier for 
buyers to find children who are being trafficked, but it also 
allows the imagery of these children to continue to circulate, 
and that often keeps the victims quiet and being silenced, in 
terms of speaking up, because their images are then being 
transmitted online for potential buyers to locate.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Last question. Mr. Pizzuro, thanks 
for your work. I have heard heart-wrenching stories of young 
people who've died after taking drugs, in one case drugs they 
bought on Snapchat through messages. A child named Devin 
suffering from dental pain bought what he thought was Percocet, 
and it was laced with fentanyl, and this was off of Snapchat. 
As his mom, Bridgette, said, ``All of the hopes and dreams we 
as parents had for Devin were erased in the blink of an eye, 
and no mom should have to bury their kid.'' Could you talk 
about whether or not the social media companies are doing 
enough to stop the sale of drugs to kids online?
    Mr. Pizzuro. The social media companies aren't doing 
anything, period. I think that's part of the problem, and that 
comes to drugs, as well. There's no moderation. Again, they're 
not looking at things specifically. They're not looking--again, 
you can't, from a communications standpoint--but that's what 
they're promoting, the social media, the interaction of people, 
so my opinion really is that we haven't seen anything, and we 
haven't seen any help from them.
    Senator Klobuchar. All right. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.
    Senator Hawley.
    Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all of 
the witnesses for being here. Ms. Bride, I want to start with 
you. I want to particularly thank you for being willing to 
share your story and Carson's story. I'm the father of three, 
two boys, and you've lived every parent's nightmare, but thank 
you for being willing to try and see some good come of that and 
for being so bold in telling your family's story.
    I want to ask you about one thing that I heard you say, and 
you've also written it in your written testimony, about Carson. 
You said, ``It wasn't until Carson was a freshman in high 
school''--so, about 14, I would guess--``that we finally 
allowed him to have social media, because''--this is what 
caught my attention--``that was how all the students were 
making new connections.''
    Could you just say something about that? Because that's the 
experience, I think, of every parent. My boys are 10 and 8, and 
they're not on social media yet, but I know they'll want to be 
soon, because they'll say, ``Well, everybody else is on it.'' 
So, could you just say a word about that?
    Ms. Bride. Yes. Thank you. We waited as long as we possibly 
could, and we were receiving a lot of pressure from our son to 
be involved. And I hear this a lot from other parents. You 
don't want to isolate your kid, either. And so we felt, by 
waiting as long as possible, talking about the harms--``Don't 
ever send anything that you don't want on a billboard with your 
name and face next to it''--that we were doing all the right 
things and that he was old enough. He was by far the last kid 
in his class to get access to this technology, yet this still 
happened to us.
    Senator Hawley. Yes. That's just incredible. Well, you were 
good parents, and you were a good mother, an incredibly good 
mother, clearly. This is why I supported and introduced 
legislation to set 16 years old as the age threshold for which 
kids can get on social media and require the social media 
companies to verify it.
    I heard your answers, down the panel, a second ago, to 
Senator Kennedy. I just have to say this. As a father, myself, 
when you say things like, ``Well, the parents really ought to 
be educated''--listen, the kids' ability--and I bet you had 
this experience, Ms. Bride. The kids' ability to figure out how 
to set what's on this phone [holding up a cell phone], my 10-
year-old knows more about this phone than I know about it, 
already. What's it going to be like in another 4 years, or 5 or 
6 years, like your son, Ms. Bride?
    So, I just say, as a parent, it would put me much more in 
the driver's seat if the law was you couldn't have a phone--or, 
sorry, you couldn't get on social media until 16. I mean, that 
would help me, as a parent. So, that's why I'm proposing it. 
Parents are in favor of it. I got the idea from parents who 
came to me and said, ``Please help us.'' You know, ``Please 
help us.'' And listen, I'm all for tech training. It's great. 
But I just don't think that's going to cut it. So, I've 
introduced legislation to do it. Let's keep it simple. Let's 
put this power in the hands of parents. I'd start there.
    Second thing, Ms. Bride. You brought suit against Snapchat 
and others. And I've got your lawsuit right here. And you were 
barred by Section 230, and you've testified to that effect. 
They just threw it all out, right?
    Ms. Bride. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Hawley. The court threw it all out?
    Ms. Bride. Right. And it wasn't----
    Senator Hawley. Go ahead.
    Ms. Bride. The lawsuit was not about content. It was about 
the company's own policies----
    Senator Hawley. Yes.
    Ms. Bride [continuing]. That lured my son in, to think that 
this product, this app, was safe, this anonymous app, that they 
would monitor for cyberbullying and reveal the identities of 
those who do so. It had nothing to do with content.
    Senator Hawley. Yes. And this is why I think it is just 
absolutely vital that we change the law to allow suits like 
yours to go forward. And if that means we have to repeal all of 
Section 230, I'm fine with it. I'm introducing legislation that 
will explicitly change Section 230 to allow suits against these 
social media companies for their own product design, for their 
own activities, for their own targeting of kids, for them to be 
sued for that and to allow you and every other parent, Ms. 
Bride, to get into Federal court.
    We will create a Federal right of action, because here's 
what I've decided. Listen, I'm a lawyer, former attorney 
general. I believe in the power of courts. And what I've 
decided is you can fine these social media companies to death. 
FTC fined Facebook, what, a billion dollars or something, a 
couple years ago? They didn't change their behavior at all. 
They don't fear that. What they will fear, though, is they fear 
your lawsuits. That's why they fought it so hard. They don't 
want parents suing them. They don't want to be on the hook for 
damages, double damages, treble damages. Well, they should be.
    And if we give the power to parents to go into court and 
say, ``We're going to sue you,'' they will fear that far more 
than they fear some regulator here in Washington, DC, who, by 
the way, is probably looking to get a job with that same 
company when they rotate off their regulatory panel, because 
that's what happens. All the regulators here in DC--they go to 
work for these tech companies as soon as they're done here. 
Well, enough of that. Let's put power into the hands of 
parents--allow you, Ms. Bride, and every other parent in 
America who has a grievance here to get into court and sue 
these people and hold them accountable.
    And I'd say the same thing about child sexual exploitation 
material. Let's let parents sue, and I will introduce 
legislation that will allow any parent in America who finds 
child sexual exploitation material online to go sue the 
companies for it. If they know or should've known, the 
companies, that they were hosting this material, let's let them 
sue them.
    I tell you what, if these companies think they're going to 
be on the hook for multi-hundred-million-dollar-or-more fines 
and damages from multiple suits all across the country, they'll 
change their act. They'll get their act together real quick. 
So, my view is, enough of this complicated regulatory this, 
regulatory that. Just give the American people and American 
parents the right to get into court and defend their kids and 
to defend their rights. And if we do that, I think we'll see 
real results.
    Last thing, Mr. Chairman. I know I'm going long, here, but 
I just want to say this. We have these hearings every so often. 
I love these hearings. They're great. Everybody talks tough on 
the companies. And then, later on, watch, we'll have votes in 
this Committee, real votes. And people have to put their names 
to stuff, and, oh, lo and behold, when that happens, we can't 
pass real tough stuff. So, I'd just say this to my colleagues: 
This has been great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing. This has been great, but it's time to vote. It's time 
to stand up and be counted.
    I've been here for 4 years. It's been 4 years of talk. The 
only thing we've gotten done on Big Tech is TikTok, which we've 
finally banned from all Federal devices. That's the only thing 
of any significance we have done on Big Tech. That has got to 
change. And I want to thank all of you for being here, to help 
galvanize that change. Thanks for indulging me, Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Hawley.
    Senator Welch.
    Senator Welch. You know, this is a pretty--there's a lot of 
heartache in this room, and you've lived it, and I just want to 
acknowledge that. And what you've lived is every parent's fear. 
And this dilemma that we have--if there's an easy solution to 
it, maybe the lawsuits, as being proposed--if there was an easy 
solution, we'd get it.
    You know, I want to talk to you, Emma, just if I can. This 
question of whether we can have an age limit--it's appealing, 
but is it practical?
    Ms. Lembke. Thank you, Senator, for your question. I have 
not spent a lot of time thinking through specific ages that 
should go on social media. I think looking at age verification 
is crucial in understanding how to build a productive solution, 
but to your point, I think the question we really have to ask 
is, when children, who know more than most parents, enter these 
online spaces, how are they protected? Because we have seen, 
time and time again, that no matter the bans, kids find a way 
in.
    Senator Welch. Right. So, they'll find a way in. And, you 
know, what we're hearing from you--you lost your son. The 
childhood sex exploitation--I mean, it's horrifying. And these 
are the examples of a system that has really gone amok, and 
it's a system that's legal. But even those kids who are not 
caught up and victimized in child prostitution or bullied into 
taking their own life--there's a mental health crisis. I mean, 
this is just not good for anybody. And kids--I mean, we were 
all kids once, and we're vulnerable at that age to what other 
people think of us.
    So, I think there is a question here that is raised by 
Senator Hawley, about--how do we have responsibility at the 
point of entry? And that is the tech companies. And they've got 
a business model where they don't necessarily publish it, and 
of course that was Section 230, but they amplify it, as Senator 
Klobuchar, in her own Klobucharian way, was able to express it. 
And that's where the business model is sustaining this effort 
on the part of Big Tech, because the more clicks they get, the 
more advertising revenue they get.
    You know, one question I have is whether it's time for us 
to create a governmental authority. That gets dismissed, 
oftentimes. But when we had previous examples like the lack of 
seat belts, it was the National Highway Transportation Board 
that was looking out after the public interest. When we had a 
lot of securities fraud in the 1930s, we had the Securities and 
Exchange Commission. It's very tough here in Congress to come 
up with a one-off, especially in tech, because they just keep 
moving ahead, and whatever we do to try to deal with the 
behavior of kids, they're kids, and they're going to get on 
that platform.
    You wanted to say something, Doctor? But one of the 
proposals that Senator Bennet made, and I made in the House, 
was to have a digital authority that had some authorization 
from Congress. Its charge was to protect the public interest, 
to look at the real world about what's happening to real kids 
and say, ``Hey, you know, this may be legal, but it ain't 
right, and we've got to do something.'' Go ahead, Doctor.
    Dr. Prinstein. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. I 
just wanted to mention an age limit is only going to be useful 
if there's some way to make sure that kids below that age can't 
get on. Remember that kids' brains are not fully matured at the 
age of 16. We cannot say that everything that's happening on 
social media now would be safe for kids at 16.
    In fact, please be aware that this is the time when most 
kids are now starting to get autonomy, driver's licenses, and 
the things they're seeing online are changing the ways that 
they're understanding what is risky versus not. Giving kids 
free rein to that content just before they get in the car and 
drive far away from their parents might actually be short 
sighted.
    Senator Welch. Thank you. Ms. Bride, do you want to offer 
anything, after all you've been through? And thank you. I 
share, I think, the sentiment all of us have. It's so inspiring 
to see a parent try to turn tragedy into something good in the 
memory of her son. Thank you.
    Ms. Bride. Thank you, Senator. I would like to see a 
combination of both. I would like to see Federal legislation so 
that these products that we know are dangerous get reviewed 
before they're released to American children. The example of my 
son, with the anonymous apps--we saw in the past they led to 
cyberbullying and suicides. Why were two other companies able 
to put out the same product?
    And on the other side of it, when things go wrong, yes, I 
would like to see Section 230 reform so that we can hold them 
accountable. But it should not take grieving parents filing 
lawsuits to change what's happening, because it's too late for 
us. Thank you.
    Senator Welch. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Welch. Senator Blumenthal has 
a question.
    Senator Blumenthal. I have. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I'll be 
very, very brief. And, again, my thanks to all the members of 
the panel and all of the folks who have come to attend.
    I share Senator Hawley's frustration and impatience, as you 
may have gathered, and I feel that sense of outrage at 
congressional inaction. And I know, Ms. Bride, you were part of 
our efforts during the last session, very, very much involved, 
as were many of the parents who are here today and others who 
are perhaps watching. And my question to you and perhaps to 
Emma Lembke is, what did that failure to act mean to you, 
personally?
    Ms. Bride. Thank you, Senator. It was extremely 
disappointing. There was so much momentum. I made trips, along 
with my fellow moms that are in the written testimony today, to 
Washington several times. It is so difficult to tell our 
stories of the very worst day of our lives, over and over and 
over again and then not see change. We're done with the 
hearings. We're done with the stories. We are looking to you 
all for action, and I am confident that you can all come 
together and do this for us and for America's children. Thank 
you.
    Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Lembke, you are part of a 
generation that has a right to expect more from us.
    Ms. Lembke. Yes, Senator. You know, I got on Instagram at 
the age of 12, and I sit in front of you all today as a 20-
year-old. But, 8 years down the line, I still see and hear of 
the harms that I experienced 8 years ago. And what I will say 
to this body is that those harms will only increase from here. 
The mental health crisis for young people that we are 
witnessing will only continue to rise. So, we cannot wait 
another year. We cannot wait another month, another week, or 
another day to begin to protect the next generation from the 
harms that we have witnessed and heard about today.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal, and thanks to 
the panel. I don't know if any or all of you realize what you 
witnessed today, but this Judiciary Committee crosses the 
political spectrum, not just from Democrats to Republicans but 
from real progressives to real conservatives. And what you 
heard was a unanimity of purpose, and that's rare. In fact, 
it's almost unheard of. And it gives me some hope.
    Now, we have our own problems that have to do with this 
institution that I work in, in terms of when things are 
appropriate, how to bring them up, and how to deal with the 
rules of the Senate. Not an easy responsibility. A challenging 
responsibility. But I think the urgency of this issue is going 
to help propel us past some of these obstacles.
    One of them is a jurisdictional issue which relates to the 
Senate Commerce Committee, which Senator Blumenthal can tell 
you has a major piece of the law that we've discussed today. 
And we, of course, are on the Judiciary side, the criminal side 
of it. We have a piece of it, as well. The question is whether 
there is any way to build them together. I think there is. 
There's certainly the will from Senator Cantwell, the Chairman 
of the Commerce Committee, and I've spoken to her personally.
    And what I'd like to promise you is this. We're going to 
have a markup. Now, that doesn't sound like much, but it is a 
big promise. It means that we are going to come together as the 
Judiciary Committee and put on the table the major pieces of 
legislation and try to decide, as a Committee, if we can agree 
on common goals and common efforts to reach those goals. I 
think we can do this, just sensing what I heard today. And I 
think, as a father and grandfather, that we must do it. We must 
do it.
    Ms. Bronstein, Ms. Bride, and others who have come here 
because of their passion for their children that they have 
lost--it makes a difference. As painful as it is, it makes a 
difference. And, Ms. Lembke, good luck at the Hilltop, with 
Washington U, but you've done a great service to our country by 
coming here today. And for the others, thank you for sharing 
this information.
    Now it's our turn. We've got to get down to work and roll 
up our sleeves. It won't be the bill I want to write. It won't 
be the bill you want to write. But if it is a step forward to 
protect children, we're going to do it. We have to do it. We 
have no choice.
    The hearing record's going to remain open for a week, for 
statements to be submitted, and you may receive some questions 
which I ask you to respond to promptly.
    [The information appears as submissions for the record.]
    I thank you all for coming today and your patience and 
determination to do well by our children. I thank the 
witnesses, and the hearing stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:36 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]

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