Teens Targeted: Legislation to combat sexual exploitation, sextortion passes U.S. House, Senate
The bill now heads to President Biden’s desk for his signature
(InvestigateTV) — A bill holding social media companies accountable and tackling online sexual exploitation of children needs only the president’s signature to become law.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan REPORT Act bill on April 29. The bill co-authored by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, is designed to protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation.
The bill passed in the U.S. Senate in December.
“This is the first major tech-related legislation that’s passed in a long time aimed at protecting children, and it is every parent’s worst nightmare that their child might be targeted on social media by predators. And this legislation is a major step forward to protect those children,” Ossoff said in an interview with InvestigateTV this month.
Ossoff and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn’s bipartisan bill strengthens the national tipline run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to collect reports of online exploitation and requires that evidence be preserved for a longer period, giving law enforcement more time to investigate and prosecute these crimes.
“Children are being preyed upon on the internet. And that’s why I worked to bring Republicans and Democrats together to pass this into law. And I look forward to the president signing,” Ossoff said.
The bill requires websites and social media platforms to report crimes involving federal trafficking and enticement of children to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which they were not required to do.
The legislation also would increase fines for companies that knowingly and willfully fail to report child sex abuse material on their website.
In January, Ossoff and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley’s bipartisan Preventing Child Sex Abuse Act of 2023 was signed into law to strengthen federal protections against the sexual abuse of children, including online exploitation. The law would empower federal prosecutors to go after criminals and predators who use digital technology, web cameras, and internet platforms targeting children.
Our InvestigateTV series, “Teens Targeted” examined the cybercrime targeting children commonly called “sextortion,” a form of child sexual exploitation where children are often threatened or blackmailed with the possibility of sharing with the public a nude or sexual image of them by a person who demands either sexual content or money from the child.
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, its tipline received more than 36 million reports last year. Of those reports, 186,819 were of online enticement, the category that includes sextortion – that’s more than double the number reported in 2022 and a five-fold increase since 2021.
In 2023 alone, the center received 26,718 reports of financial sextortion, up from 10,731 reports in 2022.
The series also exposed the challenges internet crimes against children task forces face on resources and interviewed Ossoff last July about the need for federal legislation to combat sextortion and increase funding for agencies to investigate this crime.
“The Teens Targeted series has revealed just how widespread these crimes are,” Ossoff said in an interview in May with InvestigateTV. “And that motivates lawmakers to take action. This is the worst nightmare for parents. I say that as the father of a 2-year-old little girl. And so, I thank you and your colleagues for bringing these important stories and issues, whether it’s teens targeted in sextortion crimes or the abuse of foster children into the public domain so that we as policymakers can take action to protect children.”.
Brian Montgomery, the father of Walker Montgomery, whose son took his own life following a sextortion scheme, is relieved to hear that social media companies will be held accountable as well.
“This legislation is an important step to ultimately bring criminal predators to justice. It would seem tech companies would be eager to help law enforcement with prosecutions, but their fear is that this required reporting will reveal just how much criminal activity is occurring on their platforms…We’re thankful for Senator Ossoff and his leadership in this area along with Senator Blackburn who is also a co-author on Kids Online Safety Act,” Montgomery said.
In return, Ossoff also had a message for Montgomery and other parents who have suffered because of this internet crime.
“To Mr. Montgomery, I can only express my grief and condolences at his loss. He can never replace his son, and that’s a loss that I know he and his family will live with for their entire life,” Ossoff said. “We passed this bill into law to try to prevent more children from being victims of the same kind of heinous crime, and now that this bill is law, with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House and the Senate, law enforcement will have more tools to protect children from predators on the internet.”
Read more from InvestigateTV’s Teens Targeted series:
- Sextortion cases rise across the country; child abduction survivor speaks out to raise awareness
- Funding and resources remain a constant challenge as law enforcement tackles sextortion and internet crimes
- Lawmakers push for bipartisan legislation to combat sextortion cases
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