May 1, 2024

Congress Passes Bill to Address Crisis of Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

This week, the House of Representatives concurred with the Senate and passed the REPORT Act, which now heads to the President's desk for signature. Key provisions of the new law will:

• Require social media platforms to report child sex trafficking and enticement, two crimes not currently required that are underreported.
• Increase penalties for platforms that fail to report child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
• Extend the period platforms are required to retain reported CSAM from 90 days to 1 year to allow adequate time for law enforcement to conduct investigations.
• Grant immunity from civil and criminal charges for children and their representatives who report CSAM to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) Cyber Tipline

Click here to read the Press Release from Senator Ossoff (D-GA).

Currently, 8 other bills are being considered in Congress to address the problem. Click here for a MassKids summary of what they would do.

The Crisis of Online Child Sextortion

"Sextortion" is when someone threatens to share sexual images of a child online if the child doesn’t meet their demands for money or for more sexual images. In 2023:

• Over 36 million reports of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) were received by the Cyber Tipline. 
• 186,000 children were victims of online sextortion - an increase from 80,000 in 2022. 
• 20 cases of suicide by youth have been reported in response to their facing sextortion threats or having their images posted.
• Two-thirds of online sexual imagery of children appear to have been produced in the home.

To address this growing crisis, NCMEC has produced a powerful interactive video that shows how teens can get trapped by predators through sextortion. Parents will want to click here to watch "No Escape Room." 

MassKids pledges to continue educating ourselves and you, our supporters, about the disturbing impact of sexual abuse and exploitation on children and how citizens can support efforts to strengthen our laws and policies to protect them.

What is MassKids Doing to Protect Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation?

MassKids has worked with legislators and parents to draft a bill aimed at prohibiting, developing and sharing explicit images of children that are edited, collaged, morphed or AI-generated. 

MassKids also supports H.4241, An Act to Prevent Abuse and Exploitation that would establish an educational program on the legal and non-legal consequences of sexting to educate youth charged with disseminating, producing or possessing CSAM. This bill would also expand the definition of domestic violence to include "coercive control", and outlaw the non-consensual sharing of explicit images of adults, or "revenge porn". This bill passed the House and Senate, however, amendments are still being considered.

MassKids strongly advocates for passage of a set of CSA prevention bills that would:

1. require CSA prevention education of staff and children in public and private schools and youth organizations;
2. standardize screening of prospective new school employees to prevent hiring those with histories of sexual misconduct and abuse of students;
3. criminalize sexual abuse by adults in positions of authority, including educators, regardless of the age of consent.
4. eliminate the civil and criminal Statute of Limitations on child sexual abuse cases

Urge your legislators to take action on these bills now to move them out of committee and onto the floor for passage where we expect unanimous support. Click here to download a fact sheet about these bills and their latest status.

For more information about Internet Safety for children and parents, visit our Enough Abuse website.

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