Section 230: How a Law Meant to Protect Children Became Their Biggest Threat

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ACTION: Urge Congress to End Section 230 Immunity!

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The Guardian:

‘I didn’t start out wanting to see kids’: are porn algorithms feeding a generation of paedophiles – or creating one?

"Andy was enjoying a weekend away with his wife when it happened. 'My neighbour phoned me and said "The police are in your house. They’re looking for you.” He didn’t need to wonder why. 'You know. You know the reason. I was petrified when I got that call. It wasn’t just the thought of other people knowing what I had done; I also had to face myself, and that is a sick feeling – it is guilt, shame.'

Andy had been watching and sharing images of children being sexually abused for several months before the police appeared at his door. He tried at first to keep it from his wife: 'I was afraid she would ask me to leave. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had.'

When they got home, he told her his story: that a spiralling porn addiction had led him to ever darker places, chatrooms where people talked about sex and porn, and shared images and videos. 'That was where someone sent me a picture of a child, in exchange for some porn I sent them.'"

Andy's story speaks to the ways pornography websites feed an addiction that, in some cases, can lead to prison time. Pornography depicts every type of disturbing and harmful sexual situation imaginable, normalizing this behavior in the mind of the user. This can lead consumers down a dark path of sharing child sexual abuse material and even committing sexual abuse physically. (link to video here).

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ACTION: Ask Your Legislators to Protect Children from Online Pornography!

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Victory! TAKE IT DOWN Act Clears House Committee!

The TAKE IT DOWN Act has just advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee! If passed, the TAKE IT DOWN Act would criminalize the publication of sexually explicit content that is shared without the consent of those depicted, including sexual content that is AI-generated (commonly referred to as "deepfake pornography"). Currently, there are no federal laws that make this act a crime, and very few state laws that criminalize AI-generated image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). 

Passing this bill is a key step to combatting IBSA by forcing platforms to take down content that is reported by the victim within 48 hours. Survivors of IBSA face often irreparable damage to their reputation, interpersonal relationships, and mental health, which is why this federal law is vital to curb the harms of IBSA.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act passed the Senate in the last Congressional session, but failed to get put up for a vote in the House, despite its bipartisan support. We are grateful for YOUR advocacy that has resulted in Congress taking swift action to advance this bill in this session. This is a MAJOR step towards getting this bill to the desk of the President, who himself has stated his eagerness to sign it into law.

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“Meta is Not Pro-Privacy, it is Pro-Profit,” Says NCOSE

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) reacted to today’s Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing with testimony from Meta Whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams (excerpt from her testimony 

here

).

“So often Big Tech claims that any efforts to protect kids online (from preventing adults being able to contact and groom kids online, to preventing childhood exposure to pornography) is a threat to online privacy. But as we heard today at the U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, Meta is tracking children online with such precision that they’re even targeting their negative emotions to serve them ads. It is clear Meta is not pro-privacy, it is pro-profit. It is time to pass a range of online safety regulations, Big Tech cannot police itself,” said Haley McNamara, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Programs, National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

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Sincerely, 

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