Senator graham we are going to learn a lot today about the perils of internet sites for children, and what we can do to help and inform parents. While he is on his way, i will give an opening statement. He will be here in a second, i hope. We are going to the border friday. Everybody is welcome. We are going to meet the fights that meet the vice president. There is no intrigue. I havent been in a while, and i would like to go, listen, and learn, and hopefully it will give us a better idea of what we can do legislatively to provide relief to those on the front lines of this chaotic situation at our southern border, and i am hoping we have a bipartisan group. We are not going there to blame anybody, at least i am not, i am trying to find a solution. And i look forward to the trip, and senator cornyn and i know the folks in texas are struggling with this problem. I look forward to learning from our friends in texas about what we can do. Thank you, very much. [witnesses swear oath] welcome, mr. Stone, solicitor from North Carolina, i am proud of her work. Welcome to North Carolina. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for having me. I understand Ranking Member feinstein will not be here. I want to thank her as well and the members of the committee, for the invest for the invitation to speak with you. I am the solicitor for the 14th circuit, a circuit made up of five counties in the low country of South Carolina, as senator graham knows. I am also incoming president of the National District attorneys association. For this hearing, i also carry the title of parent. I think that is relevant because in this particular issue and concept, we need to understand the world we are living in, which is substantially different than it used to be. If you think about it, parents teach their children every day to nottalk to strangers, open locked doors for people they dont know, certainly not get into a car or a van with somebody they dont know, and yet every day, and we take precautions about this, we put up locked doors, windows locked, we have security systems. Despite all of that, strangers are talking to our children every day, and they are doing it through the internet. They are doing it by use of the childrens cell phones, often unknowingly, but by invitation from our own children. The Pew Foundation did a study recently, i think it was a 2018 study, that stated 95 of teens today have access to the internet through their cell phones. 45 are doing it almost constantly. And i dont think any of us that either have teenagers are no teenagers would doubt those statistics. If you look at it from that perspective, the question then is, what is the risk . What is the risk of these children having this type of access, and people having access to our children behind locked doors . Our friends from the center for missing and exploited children cyberell you 18. 4 million tips that they received in 2018 indicate the risk to our children. Million, after. 4 the studies were conducted, 98 of the offenders were strangers. So strangers are talking to our children. If you look at state Department Statistics, they tell you tens of thousands of children are being exploited online. If you look at further state Department Statistics concerning the role of Human Trafficking, you will learn half of those are children. And with these human traffickers are doing when it comes to either labor or sex trafficking, they are using the internet to entice, coerce, and in many ways even arrange the buying and selling of our children. The internet and the cyber world we live in, it is no longer a bricks and mortar world. It is a situation we have to take into consideration. I am the solicitor for a fivecounty circuit in South Carolina. Of those counties, one counties beaufort county, the home of hilton head, the heritage golf tournament, and what seems like endless tourism. It is a wealthy county, probably the second wealthiest county in the state of South Carolina. But the average poverty and caloric in South Carolina is 16. 6 . I have three counties below that percentage peered one county is Allendale County and unless you are senator graham, you may never have heard of Allendale County, but Allendale County suffers at over 30 poverty. The demographics of my circuit it is a0 square miles, microcosm of South Carolina, and many ways, of this country. What i see in the poor as well as the wealthy areas in my circuit, are the same issues when it comes to cybercrime. I would like to tell you what i see. Office is probably a mediumsized Prosecution Office when it comes to national standards. I spent 14 of my personnel budget on intelligence. And part of that intelligence our computer and cell phone experts who not only download from these computers and cell and trybut also study to help us uncover these crimes and to help Law Enforcement throughout our circuit make these types of cases. I have seenseen, professionallymade music videos that are being produced by and for gang members to basically recruit our children. I have seen prisoners who operate prostitution rings outside of the prison, having already been convicted. Only drug dealers, gang members, but other all thes, with information that they have inside their cell phones, which in the past, it would be a notebook. Today it is their cell phone. These events we see, we need your help in many ways because Law Enforcement and the solicitors and district attorneys around this country, they face a challenge. When it comes to these notebooks, cell phones, information we have in there, we need help with the encryption issue. When it comes to prisons in particular, i would like to thank senator graham and senator kennedy for sponsoring a bill that will allow our prisons to block that cell service. Purpose behind a prison as isolating the people inside it. If they have access to a cell phone inside the prison, we are not keeping our citizens, community or our children safe from them. Say we have to look at it from the perspective of what type of world we are dealing with today, as opposed to when i first became a prosecutor in 1989. The biggest change we have seen over the past 10 years as the use of technology by criminals. We see that in every aspect of every case we have. Back and we talk about the encryption issue, which i think is particularly relevant, i started my career as a narcotics prosecutor. If a Police Officer executing a lawful search warrant went into someones house and found drugs, that would help them with that case. If they found guns to protect the product, that would also help, scales, that type of thing. In order to destroy the enterprise, if they could find the notebook, those collections of documents that told them who the major buyers were, who the sellers were, that type of thing, that is how you could actually destroy that network. Today, that is that is not on a notebook or a pad like this. It is on their cell phone. We have experts to download those cell phones for Law Enforcement, and they do it with a court order based on probable some, and yet there are Cell Companies that refused to assist Law Enforcement in enforcing those court orders. If we are going to do those investigations and we are going humantrackinge these humantrafficking enterprises, the gangs, we are going to need help with that aspect of it. Senator thank you, mr. Chairman thank you, mr. Chairman. I have been at georgetown law and represented nonprofit organizations such as the campaign for a commercial free childhood at the center for digital democracy, and efforts to improve the media environment for our children. I have written a number of law review articles about that subject. Many problems families are struggling with today, such as how to protect their childrens privacy, prevent exposure to inappropriate contact inappropriate content, and limit the time children are spending online, are the direct results of two things. First, the Business Models of the dominant Tech Companies. They designed their systems not to protect or nurture children, but to attract an art attract a large number of users, including children, and keep them online as long as possible so they can maximize revenue by collecting valuable data about those users, and deliver targeting marketing to them. Second, as i explain in my written testimony, the government has failed to adopt sufficient safeguards for children and has not effectively enforced safeguards that do exist. In particular, the federal trade commission has failed to vigorously enforce the childrens Online Privacy protection act. As a result, big Tech Companies, including google, youtube, facebook condemn is on, have felt empowered to ignore existing safeguards. When it was adopted in 1998, there was no youtube, social media, smartphones, smart speakers in childrens bedrooms, and no toys connected to the internet. Coppa has not kept up with these developments. The underlying premise of the law is that children is that parents can protect their children if they are given adequate notice, and if they have to give verifiable consent before data can be collected from the children. This istice has proven no longer tenable. Another problem with coppa is that safeguards only come into play in certain situations, either through Online Services directed at children or where the operator has actual knowledge of children using a specific service. Many times when children are online, they are not getting any of the coppa protections. Another limitation with coppa is that it doesnt provide safeguards when a child turns 13, and teens, because of the stage of development, are less evaluate are less able to evaluate risk and more susceptible to peer pressure. So they take a lot of risks. Act ofive 2019 the 2019 would be a good first step to update coppa. But in the absence of new legislation, the ftc can and should act to better protect childrens privacy. Since 2000, when the law took effect, the ftc has only brought 29 actions to enforce coppa. And since 2012, i have personally been involved in filing 14 requests asking the ftc to investigate coppa violations. Yet, the ftc has not acted, at least publicly, in response to any of them. In addition to bringing more enforcement actions, the ftc should ensure that the selfregulatory coppa safe harbor programs that congress intended to help augment ftc enforcement are actually doing their job. And given the large number of websites and Online Services used by children, it is not easy for the ftc to pursue all violations. Urge the ftcon, i to use its authority under section five to hold platforms responsible when they characterize apps or other content as appropriate for children when they are not, and conversely when they say sites are not appropriate for children, and know there are a lot of children using them anyhow. I will give you one example of a recent complaint we filed in december 2018 on behalf of the organizations i mentioned. We asked the ftc to investigate whether the Google Play Store was engaging in an unfair engaging in unfair and deceptive practices in labeling apps in the family section of the play store as familyfriendly, when the apps did not meet googles own criteria. Googles right area was good. It included complying with privacy laws, preventing unfair or deceptive ad practices and inappropriate content, but what we found through our investigation is that google was not enforcing them. Another complaint i will mention involves youtube, and the fact youtube clearly knows there are lots of children, it is the most popular destination for Children Online, and yet they pretend there are no children, so they dont give notice to parents and dont apply any copper requirements. I urge the members to put pressure on the federal trade commission to enforce the laws on the books, and also on the companies to act more responsibly. A number of members have written letters to the ftc and the companies. Atlso urge congress to look what new legislation might be helpful in addressing some of these, not only pitfalls, but new issues coming up with facial recognition, Artificial Intelligence, and other new technologies. Thank you. I welcome any questions. Morning. Chairman graham, senator blumenthal, members of the committee, thank you for allowing us this opportunity to speak today. I cant think of a more noble cause than the safety and protection of our children. The safety and protection of the children. I began protect young eyes five he internet cause t is complex and diligent parents ital verwhelmed by dig choices their children are facing. Through thousands of hours of research and dozens. Digital examining trends weve witnessed the wonderful potential and troubling darkness that exists in the pockets of millions of young people today. Today, well hear difficult stories, i wish they uncommon. Instagram was at the number one site for grooming, finding young girls can be hunted like prey. We started an account with two to mimic the ied behavior of an average between two. Selfies with a few hash tags and liked a few photos. Had dozens of e of their g us photos again talls and sending us hard , even though we told all of them were only 12. The teens 75 of received pornographic direct trangers even if they had a private account. But you wont find warnings in the App Store Description thats mention anything about sex predators, risks, sex tracking phy. Ard core pornogra defaults are not set for child rated though instagram is plus by y apple and 13 google. Weve seen predatory relationships that exist between p chat, used byna 75 of teens today. Ors shuttle over to snap chat, where evidence disappeared. Elentless pedophile calls himself daddy invites young m in snap chat i with posts like two plus year obedient whores only or hit me up on snap to be dad res naughty girl. Where explicit ives just porn hub l seconds away within back doors app allows app the performers to make thousands of dollars daily and snap chats can encourage kids to snap app. Tions at every kid has access to discover new section, theyre taught how to engage this risky sexual as anal sex, how o sell drugs and how to hide internet activities from parents. But you wont find anything in the App Store Descriptions that the premium about accounts, predator risks of using snap mask or the sexualized content. Y ap chat is rated 12 plus b plus by google. Ll tell us ies wi ratings are in place however, ountability tle acc for inaccurate ratings. Witter rated four plus for a decade. Though hard core porn and prostitution is everywhere. Its still breaking the policy, but only claims infrequent or app sexual content in the description. Plus and rated four vpn, four plus. Platforms rated 12 plus an apple. Currently the apps rating process is broken. Tech companies will tell us protecting kids is the parents responsibility, this ignores the nature of the internet f i do to protect my t, own 14yearold daughter with 90 of teens owning a device, a simple bus friends sit to a house can change their lifes content. G people ore have youn had the ability to change the trajectory of each others lives so quickly. Tech Companies Say theyre putting things in place but it set up on the to iphone. Efaultd better age based d thats would protect millions of kids. Controls over y zoom and bed time can shut off distracting apps. Tech companies will tell us regulating is too big of a job and cant be done. Video games are already and shows ly doing it us a path. I believe berg said we need more effective goals for nd ernments and regulators a we agree. Our hope to create safer digital places for young people. El solutions could change. Stem for appsorm sy and set better defaults during up. Ce and app set kids. Fix this for the thank you, mr. Chairman. Ere. An honor to be h i serve as the president of national senter for missing and exploited children. I am pleased to be here to erspective ofboroing Child Exploitation online and dangers on the internet. This is a private organization to help find missing children, reduce Child Exploitation and prevent child victimization. To combat Program Online exploitation is a cyber for the public and electric service providers. Important d as child to make clear what this is, not pornography rape and Sexual Assault children on images and video. Last year, we received over 18 million reports of international and domestic online child sex abuse. The number is taunting and so are many new trends including wing. Ollo between 2017 and 2018, video ncrease 541 . D to i a broader range of lat forms being used to trade sex abuse ding chat, video, ssaging, photo sharing, dating sites, gaming platforms systems. L sharon line, it can be used to sexually exploit a child. Relating to enticement xtortion using nonphysical coercion to manipulate a child activity. Al were ring reports with graphic images of young children, including infants and reports of n demand sex abuse known as live streaming. From the opencome web not the dark web but thoughs for the dark web such as child sex abuse. Eded. Atives are ne st enforcement cant arre their way out of this. There must be a way to remove images. In a is cant be done vacuum. There are Strong Partnership was ort nology companies in supp of the mission and these are crucial because while there is for gal requirement Technology Companies to screen, then, companies have business reasons to do so. This. Pport of there is an image that can scan for identical images and ve these en and remo from their services. Facilitate hasheering by hosting echnology for t companies to share 1. 2 million hashes of abusive images among hemselves and hosting a second platform. With those companies. Are Critical Resources and sure that were using the most advanced technologies including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to protect abuse online. And row viedz a broad range of programs to support children who have been victims of sex abuse iven o provide data dr prevention and education abuse. S relating to such to conclude, were fortunate o be joined by this committee and our nonprofit partners and its essential to continue to form broader partnerships to support our work and as society represident elects on the continued role of the internet e must make sure that Technology Tools such as hashing remain viable and effective to combat the spread of online child sexual exploitation. Ortunity for this opp to appear where you and i look forward to continuing work with this committee and to answering you v thank you very much. Morning chairman graham, my name is steven balcom, the family ceo of safety institute. My message is that we need to culture of online, develop resiliency and we must move oring t blocking to monit and from restrictions to responsibility. Its an International Nonprofit looking to make the online world safer for children and families by identifying and promoting best practices, tools, and methods in the field of online free that also respect speech. I first testified 24 years ago as part of the hearing on cyber porn and children. He technology is changed immensely over two decades and n. Allenges remai we must keep children safe on the internet while ensuring ccess the le to a amazing opportunities for learning and fun available to them. Ur experience has shown by engaging parts of the Technology Including government, Law Enforcement were able to power and instill resilience this way,ldren and in ensure online experiences remain productive. Their use of this media allows them to Gain Knowledge in a variety of new ways. And ren are able to create tent on a world wide platform. Many benefits of the online eniable, und accompanying risks and challenges can not be discounted. And we do not seek to diminish existence of the risks on the focus on the to constructive ways they can be the benefits and opportunities of being online. We believe creating a culture of responsibility is the most effective framework to ensure rotected in the digital world. Hearings like this one are important of the roles that government needs to play in order to create a Safer Internet for all. Additionally, weve been pleased to work with the first lady on be best initiative. Further ndustry to go and consider Online Safety throughout the development of products and services. We support oversight believing this allows for maximum nnovation and development of creative solutions. History of a long working with and i appreciate. Its imperative theyre resourced and given tools and raining to combat the rise in crime. Parents must be engaged and knowledgeable. We know care givers are worried about the amount of time devices are spending on as well as content theyre accessing and we seek to allay these concerns by empowering ate the online g world with their children, involving exploring the internet their kids and employing control tools provided by companies. Tech untiling training must be provided to teachers since these are one of the first places ook for and children l help on information for digital must be s and children taught to be good digital citizens and know about rights and responsibilities that come ith being online and to understand consequences of sharing personal information and right them to make the decisions when seeing upsetting content or inappropriate behavior. 100 internet cannot be made safe. And we must give them the tools to deal with what theyll and offline. Take to protect a 7yearold will not be the same for a 17yearold though theyre both minors. That is why we must move from 7yearold will not be the same blocking to monitoring. Rom restrictions to responsibility. Let me urge you to not estimate unities that opport enrich lives of Many American children. Access to information, freedom to express themselves and cultivation of skills to equip them to thrive in a connected be protected. That we can ensure we acknowledge risks, mitigate harms and allow all children to this digital f your time. You for thank you. Thank you for holding hearings. Its important that we face this question about protecting Children Online and i want to especially tnesses, and i can remember ticut and other states established their sex offender registry and i arg fewed to defend the constitution our parents have a responsibility. We have a more role perfect big all too often. Last month, researchers found you tube Recommendation System as promoting videos that sexualize minors and parents can ids andnocent videos of k algorithms might shepherd the ple to them. Disappointed with you two to take basic steps that d i ask black burn an platforms. Fix their and ill ask questions with it going forward. A you tube celebrity was sent for 10 years in prison for coercing and deceiving at least under aged girls and the its l response demonized videos. Press and as ant disappointed as i am, in the failure of the companies to meet service and ms of laxity in es these companies have incentive to and morals and standards the law provides. National o set a how we need to know that authorities and organizations will be providing evidence they need when children are threatened and resources we need toquired and that information will be kept safe and secure. Ank you for this opportunity to ask questions. Thank you. Mr. Stone, what percentages cases where have you a warrant where Companies Fail to help you . Know i can give you a percentage. Big problem. Think recognize theyre not going to be able to get past theyre notodes and able to make the effort. So if you had someone, or a group of people going to a school house to expose so what can we do . Missing . Are part of it has to be focused on that. To ou did set up a site mimic men . Yes. To those men . Ed absolutely nothing of. We can report the accounts and ask for instagram through their to potentiallyss take those accounts down but new oneyou can set up a ll that does is create a blip no his is where there are s lters and there are feature and those are cyber reports oming to us are service providers. L the rest of from citizens us. Ort such content to when i think over as ceo at the about 4 million reports. Rose to 18. 4ss million. To larger what happens to these people beings for lack of a better word that are reporting it . We send the reports on. Does anyone get prosecuted . That y do. They do. So is what we refer to as good news. Ask forces h the t around the United States and and those around the globe thatse are sent to those we prosecute. Is it creating a sense of deter yens . I believe sit in the sense we reporting and and i think its if youre getting identified. I said, the volume is just staggering. Right. Miss campbell. Be your message . On a scale of 110 how are they doing . I would say one half. There is potential to get better. Are violations. We call in ecommend Tech Companies . Yes. I do. Thank you. I think half is probably generous given the experience you and others have outlined today. Would others agree the Tech Companies can and should do more to protect children . Senator. The dark web and its majority of the attention when it comes to criminal issues. I believe the main stream, more is just as internet dangerous. Videos described earlier, music made show essionally gang members with guns and drugs show them bee belittling Law Enforcement. Those recruiting tools are not web. G posted on the dark theyre being posted on you tube. That perspective its something we need to see. Laws we want. E d im a supporter of th divisions and will be a as soon as im able. But best laws in the world are enforced. Rs and not would member as agree fcc should a better job . Is there anyone who disagrees . Fcc testify y have well . Indicated there had been 29 actions and fcc has failed to of connect 1200tion. No carrier misconduct . I think were getting a good mation and i prosecuted a case in which the 115yearold is hat shot and killed another 15yearold and the shooter also, when he was looking for is 40 caliber gun in order to he down the other teenager facebook. On example is is an of the tools. Its correct. And ossed the dark web advanced search engine. Dont offices do not have resources to have that advanced engine. Time i think were seeing a small percentage of the crime. That is how the federal might be more assistance to you. How about forensic evidence . To answer your question is improvement . Or connect 1200 44 80 of the day. Many of those people come into contact with thing thats harm them and sometimes, results are severe. Only 55 of Human Trafficking survivors first encountered their trafficker online or via message. And correctively, apple app tore and Google Play Store 95 of app about purchases in the United States. Both use an age rating system. And they have child focused rules to prevent children from they exposed to things shouldnt be. And popular apps can, do provide sexually explicit contebt to children. Its happening when inputting innocent search terms that have do with what is happening. Fers we want rans pair yensy. In other other context we know young people are send spending ime do we allow this much in accuracy with information to give parents. Im envisioning a toy in a toy aisle that have some of the pee tours of what we see and telling the other ll mixed in things we want to you avoid one place. That be unify them to iftion so there is confusion you look. And if youre to look at app description in apple for instagram, tictoc and snap chat there is nothing unique to tell s about risks or things specific to snap map. Here u look at top fames t are volumes of information telling you what foz on and parts. To body you walk away as a parent with a connect 1200 the user. In ed simply submit that removes p, which barrier busy rs i said are you here . This is relaying difficulties as or, a professor with her to Level Education understand these can be done by default. Standpoint. Privacy this is one of privacy. Riasy and search for p controls. To allow my ose t ildren to have access, tha should be what i hunt for. That is smarlt. And to understand as a parent there are ways to do that but does need to be easier. Do this . Fcc my rule . No fcc doesnt have rule making authority. Im just thinking of how to make this a reality. Yes. Rk with our devices as well. If we Want Companies to step up the , naedz to be part of equation as well. Delve s is an area we can deeper into. And thank you. Mr. Mckenn fachlt youre buying a phone for your 14yearold and wanted to edevent her from being exploit or exposed to things she ee, what would you do . A phone. Ghter has that s an Android Device is used in certain, very public places. We decided Location Matters ers. E kids use phones matt im not asking your daughter particularly. In general . Etting at is what can a parent do . Sure. Today. To try to prevent their child this stuff . Well if they allow their media, to use social here are very few Parental Controls that would prevent them are seeing these things is is the only way to see them is to ot allow them to use social media. Which dation this binary decision. If we allow it we accept a certain level of risk. Be filtered ia can can it not . If social media creators in its current iteration, no. I cannot filter on instagram. It another way. Im interested in solutions. I think we ought to understand problem. Yes. Can apple design a program that parent can opt into and the to apple would be program to filter all information that my daughter or could be see that sexually exploitive. All pictures or genetalia. To human can that be done . Not sure, nest im senator. Isnt that the short way home here . Senator all of the major arental g systems have p controls. Its interesting is that the first whooit house summit the first lady held last year she ompanies to tech c make but first can it be done . Yes. Write legislation or a rule that says here is a thing a reasonable parent would do in has ction with someone who filter expertise and you everything. I dont know how to do it. Maybe to prohibit pictures of human genetalia or references to sexual activity. I dont know. Ng to like ent goi it. Gnaw is not who were trying to please here. Why cant that be done . You can go fight with social edia companies and lobbyists and weve been talking two years bill. A one. t seen dont know if well ever see one. We might a microwave, not a crock pot here. I dont see why apple cant just write a program . Are they going to miss something . Sure. If theyre in good faith write my program put it into phone that is going to filter this stuff. And do it in good faith and look over their shoulders. Can we do that . Example, give you an verizon has something called smart family that will do what youre asking to do. Theyve created it as this, at t has their own without having to create a law. I dont know, im not a lawyer. Can it be done . It is being done. Can we require that . Operating spot . Would that solve the problem . Substantially . I dont know how you craft a law. Here are already parental devices. In do you think there people at fcc doing a lousy job on this . Yes. Do you know who they are . Would you support legislation to yir to fire them . I dont think that is the solution, senator. You dont think shun ought to lousy job . En doing a perhaps. We should look at the reasons. Lazy or because theyre interested . Or not good employees. Thank you to each of you for kennedy e and senator weve been on this issue several years. We have the browser act. This to finish because we need to. I thank the chairman and i think senator blumenthal for working this issue and to each of you. Attention for your on this. And i watched and read its Andrey Epstein this weekend orities est and how auth towned hundreds of nude photos home der aged girls in his this, case serves as a warning predators do lurk. Of society. Ner and you have spoken that and ve said these u predators are right l on these apps. Hat our precious children are using. Whether snap chat or any of those. Not have that have tion and many of us focussed on this issue for years. The Justice Department is program. On th i do hope theyre working with you and going after these predators. Is focused deputy ag on the platforms and having a is going toe effort ive reviewed d that case, the soledad case from california. Ice agents apprehended him he snap chat to ng try to coerce a 13yearold boy xually explicit and the parents called the police. The children lived in tennessee, ifornia. Llinois and cal was coerced using a social media application. This is how this sick, vile human be being was go after eing was going these children. As a mom and grand mom its to see ening to me center for ed as a profit on social media platforms eff filed a complaint regarding an investigation into google, surveillance of school on chrome books. They to and track and follow and virtual ing yot that they the child because have the question. Ckenna, i will just say this. Mr. Zuckerberg fought us for privacy for years. Inally hes clavenging his tunes. Apps do into these applications . They can manipulate. Embed . Ould you wed allow and a lot of children truly have a private curated set a ontact that would not allow people. There is an ability for strangers. Let me move on. Im going to ask you to submit this to me. You mention video fame rating in the house. I think mortal combat was the big thing. Like to you submit in i ratings are wrong of. What have said this, this we went through with the rido game. Diligence u for your id look forward to continuing yield back. Thank you. You for to each of being here. This is is an important issue and we can agree that exploiting children is one of the worst of the worst social threats and lets talk whether or not being callous is model. Art of the business is. Concern is that it allowing pedophiles to contact the children this, report is sickening is more you tubes reversal not to do anything about it. You tube admitted they can do their model ut it s that 70 of their traffic come interests these auto recommended videos. Hat e are ad revenue t stopped had exploitation. Does anyone think one of the Worlds Largest companies should d revenue over a Children Safety . Introduced a i bill to stop recommending video unless feature children hey fall in this carefully taylored exceptions. Hope this economy will have hold a hearing on it and refer ate and ask sen online. And do you agree aspect of the Business Model conflicts with the safety of children. Thank you for the question. I agree. That absolutelye conflicts with protection. What else can we do about that . About this is based on thats disappear. So snap chat could be doing more in terms of the types of friend referrals that happen and they discover. In that is where engagement happens. They want more people is it your sense theyre engaging in practice thats relates to their child users . Absolutely. That do we allow few controls . Right . I mean 16 million people, teens using snap chat. If the app were to say were for adults only, i believe there is a duty of care and responsibility for a population ey know are using their app to protect them. So youre nodding your head. Do you agree with that. I want to ask you about. I would add just to you tube has got good policies. The problem is that theyre not enforcing the policies. Content e is a lot of on one reason is it has to be on and of course, google benefitting from those. That would have been a good thing but thats not what they chose to do. Let me ask you briefly you mentioned the need for the ftc to get serious about enforcement for updates to coppa. Proud to be cosponsoring a major update. The first and 20 years that would provide sweeping new privacy protections for children. It would also apply to any company that has reason to know that a child is a user even if they dont have actual knowledge. Constructive knowledge which is hugely significant. For actually holding these companies accountable. You mentioned earlier that the ftc may be able to use some Rulemaking Authority under coppa to require new default privacy settings for devices or on platforms. Should we be thinking about including language to this effect . What would you counsel us to do to make this update as tough as possible . Dark patterns is when a company will create usage to incentives for users to do something that is not necessarily in the users interest but does benefit the company. But mr. Mckenna was talking about with making it difficult to find privacy settings, not setting defaults to protect privacy. Those are part of the dark pattern problem. They can make it very easy to do what you want to do and very difficult even if you make a lot of effort to change those privacy settings or protect yourself. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your work on this important topic. Senator taylor. Thank you all for being here. Here. Could you talk about the initiatives with the first lady . What is a successful instate look like . She chose Cyber BullyingOnline Safety as her main task to work on as first lady. Shes also included opioid abuse and general wellbeing of children. We have been very impressed with her approach. What does that look like in terms of the impact it would have on the Technology Providers . It has raised the subject and the topic to the front. At the highest levels there is concern and a challenge to Technology Companies to step up and to deal with this issue. Mr. Mckenna, when you were exchanging questions and answers with senator ernst, you rod up brought up the cause to try to get out a way to understand who is likely to use a phone. Im a technology person. Im trying to get my head around the numbers because there are some 300 million cell phones in use in the United States and that number is only going to grow. Many of those are in the hands of adults who may leave them. They may not be passwordprotected. So kid may pick it up. Im trying to figure out practically how we could do that. Theres also i think in the last estimated 89 of all households have some personal computer. We havent even talked about one of the other portals and all this horrible activity that weve also got to sweep into this. And the internet of things, who knows whats next in terms of being able to drive content and possibly have a child respond to it. Has there been any sort of collaboration between groups like yourself and the Tech Industry to sit down and figure out the short and longterm strategy for doing this . I follow a lot on texting while driving. I got criticized when i was in the North Carolina state house for apparently denying somebody there constitutional right to endanger my driving while they are with their phone going down the road. I understand what you all are here for. I think if we really take a look at how we are going to make the new internet of things a safer environment for youths and young adults and adults weve got to really instead of looking at any one area as the solution to the problem we have to look at this holistically or we are only going to scratch the surface of what i consider to be the Public Health and Public Safety crisis. So if we go back to the idea i immediately think about when you go and set up an apple id, you could lie and say you are 18 or 16 or 14 or 25. So whos responsible for determining the honesty of the user of that platform . Lets say you are a 14yearold who lied because your parents gave you access to the credit card or whatever you needed and you lied and said you were 20. Who is responsible . The parents in that case, no question. Im glad you answered the question that way. I was hoping you would. At some point we have to recognize we cannot only weave into this discussion the responsibility of tech providers which are constantly changing and if all of a sudden we put the big tech on notice then little tech is going to come in and provide a different solution. We also have to weave into the public consciousness that you are giving your child a potentially lethal device and at some point in time we have to have a discussion about the parents responsibility for making that device safe, or taking it away from them. Heres a concept. And 9 00 andept, they dont get the phone on till youre ready to go to school. We have to have the discussion with the parents about understanding their routers. Understanding you could prohibit access to all of these sites if you choose to. If the kit is connected to the hotspot at home. And then coming up with a balanced solution that absolutely mandates the Technology Providers get a handle on the content and the potential lethality of that content. We have to get the parents and those who provide the technology to these young people in the equation. Absolutely. And make it as minimally complex as possible. I think that is the idea. That absolutely right. Then you can actually place more responsibility on the people who ultimately had to take care of their children. If you opt out of this if you , allow them to go into a Gaming Program environment potentially leads to a dangerous outcome than the parents ultimately have to be held accountable for that. Senator, if i its why we may, created the good digital parenting initiative. We distilled all of our experience and expertise to something called the seven steps to good digital parenting and key to this is talking with your kids. Sitting down and setting Parental Controls. Using an Online Family Safety contract with your children and critically and whats missing in all of this also is parents being good digital role models themselves. Putting the phone down at dinner. Not texting while driving. Giving your kids contact when they come for it. Parents are absolutely radical critical part of this. They are the least well served in terms of information and support. On a final note, i dont know if you any of you have the statistics, there was a news report about a month ago it may have been google or youtube. They have operations set up where they have people its a horrible job. I cant imagine doing it. Where they are reviewing all this content. Do we have any idea about how much of the maligned content is being interdicted by the current processes versus whats getting through . I think thats another thing we need to do to cede to what to see to what extent we scale what theyre already doing to cast a wider net . Those are the sorts of things we have to talk about if we are going to come up with good sustainable policy that lets us benefit from all the great things the internet has given us but also address the Public Safety that you are all here today. And i appreciate it. That sort of information if you have any they can give me an idea i know we are doing poorly. But what efforts out there if we simply scaled them could reduce a lot of the problems. So we can narrowly focus legislate of outcomes and regulatory outcomes. I welcome your feedback. I may not be able to give you exact numbers on what we are missing that i will tell you this. Our Attorney Generals Office in South Carolina prosecutes about 250 of these offenders every year. But what is more disturbing through the internet crimes against children what is more disturbing, i think to me looking at those gross numbers, is while those indictments are being brought their investigators are working through about 85 new cases every year and in those 85 new cases they are seeing over a 1,086,000 files of child pornography that they are having to go through. So the numbers that we are talking about are massive. Senator blumenthal. A couple of brief questions. We havent really talked about data mining and the threat to childrens security from the extraordinary exponentially exploding means of gathering information about children. Capo was never designed for toys connected to the internet, toys with cameras. Toys that often have their own security owner abilities. Vulnerabilities. Im part of a working group that is examining proposals to assure protections for privacy and one of our models is the California Consumer privacy act that requires businesses to get opt in consent to sell information of children under the age of 16. I believe the rest of the country ought to follow californias example and impose the strictest protection possible. Does everyone on this panel agreed that the standards for consent and strict privacy protections under federal rules should be expanded to cover children and minors under 16 . Yes sir. Mr. Mckenna . Mr. Clark . Im glad that everyone agrees. Im glad that everyone agrees. Professor campbell, you suggested that all child directed content should be placed on a separate platform where targeted advertising commercial Data Collection links to other sites where content, comments and autoplay are prohibited. And i agree that that kind of separate platform would help protect children. Would legislation be required for it if it were imposed rather than done voluntarily . I think it is possible that is something the federal trade commission could negotiate with youtube as part of if they are investigating them and trying to settle the case as part of the settlement. Otherwise i think it couldnt require that under existing law. With that approach have applications beyond youtube . Thats the problem with consent decrees. They are only binding on the parties to the consent decrees. So it would probably require legislation. It would require the ftc to impose that kind of separate platform on a variety of other sites. Yes. And let me ask finally if each of you were to design or let me ask you professor campbell initially, heightened safeguards for children and minors to protect against this kind of data mining, what additional steps would you take . One of the important things is to limit the Data Collection to only data that is absolutely necessary and the other is to not allow companies to retain the data beyond the time thats reasonably necessary to use it. And we are seeing this happening a lot for example with the amazon speaker for kids. Specifically for kids but they are saving their voice recordings of children and the translations of those voice recordings in many cases indefinitely and theres no way to even delete all of them even when the parent tries. Except to take the child out of the service and a lot of times you want your child to be able to use these services. I think we really need to focus on data minimization and Data Security because the data thats available to companies can easily be available through data brokers and other sources to predators and lots of other people. And data minimization is another requirement of the california law. And the childrens Online Privacy protection act. Exactly. Any other suggestions from other members of the panel . Thanks again. Senator cruz. Thank you for testifying on this very important topic. Mr. Mckenna. An article last month in the New York Times detailed how youtubes recommendation algorithms can lead users from adult pornography to videos of girls as young as five or 6yearold wearing bathing suits. Do you know if youtube has changed their algorithms regarding Child Exploitation and if not what can and should youtube do to stop this . Senator cruz, thank you. On that very important topic i am not aware that youtube has changed their algorithm. Im guessing if they would have done that it would have been newsworthy and parents everywhere would have been celebrating that and im not aware of that news. I believe that youtube in their vast knowledge has the ability to in the same way that they can recommend videos they can choose not to recommend videos and that would simply be a change that they would have to choose to make. Wired reported that sexual predators use the Comment Section of youtube videos to help other predators find videos. For example they would announce times in videos that would be of particular interest to sexual predators. Youtube thankfully disabled commenting on many of the videos of children under 13. Has this prevented sexual predators from using youtube to spread this information or is it simply moving the problem elsewhere . I believe its a step in the right direction. Im happy theyve made this change. I believe it should mitigate some of the activity. But based on our experience these individuals are extremely creative and the comments section irrespective of platform whether its youtube or instagram and other platforms that allow comments are all breeding grounds for this sort of networking of pedophiles. So if its not going to be on youtube it will simply move to another platform and weve been witness to that. As you know, little over a year ago we passed and the president signed into law the stop enabling sex traffickers at act, which amended section 230 of the Communications Decency act to strip immunity from Online Platforms that knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking. How successful has sesta been and what else can congress do . And that is open to anyone. Good question. I think sesta largely has helped the takedown of backpage. Com for example. Certain ads that were attracted to the networks of mr. Mckenna that shared a network to entice kids into sex for sale. I would also say that it seems like when one disappears another one appears. Thats a global issue as weve been saying across the country of the United States plus the world. We are seeing still in increase on those number of chat sites, video sites, opportunities for exploitation to continue in the digital world. Last year, a texas woman sued facebook for providing human traffickers with a way to stock, exploit, recruit, groom and extort children into the sex trade. In your judgment are facebook and the other social media sites doing enough to combat exploitation of their platforms by sex traffickers . Not all of em. [laughter] once again i would say there is room for improvement here. I think what weve seen with the cooperation of the Tech Companies on the plus side being participating in things like cyber tip roundtables bringing companies together so that we can have a collaborative approach. If theres ever been a cause for what i call a true Publicprivate Partnership this is it. Of all the Tech Companies that handle reporting to nick nick about 1500 of them, many of them still can do more. Thank you. What i was trying to formulate in my head to say was that not enough is being done. In our experience it doesnt feel as though until theres a huge news report or there is some pressure. There is always this reactive response to these sort of issues from these large companies. They are brilliant organizations. I am confident that they have in their knowhow the ability to within weeks take care of many of the problems that we have spoken about here at this hearing. But its not until they are pushed or there is pressure or there is reputational damage or something that they seem to move and even then in the case of youtube they are still unwilling to do some very simple things that we think would protect children. Thats my greatest concern is there is this continual resistance and reactive approach to the problems that us feel so obvious. I would certainly be interested, i know the committee would in any of the witnesses recommendations for additional steps that need to be taken because this has to be continually and vigorously addressed. I just wanted to give an example using youtube. Why are so many under 13yearolds on youtube when the terms of prohibit them from using youtube. I think again if children were using a different site that you wouldnt have as much problem with predators. It is true that its a global problem because you will see the in an outdoor pool in their bathing suit promoting toys. They are being paid by products to promote these toys and they are on all of the different platforms as well. It is a problem that needs to be looked at across platforms. I want to thank senator cruz for mentioning sesta and also section 230 which in some ways is the elephant in the room. The immunity which is so broad and uniquely encompassing, by many of the Tech Companies, is part of the reason that they are failing to do more. Because you mentioned, mr. Mckenna you mentioned the potential duty of care, standard of care which is enforceable only if there is some accountability. And right now the biggest obstacle to accountability is section 230. I appreciate senator cruz mentioning assessed up mentioning sesta. We thank you again for your help on it. I think its an example of the bipartisan action that i hope will emerge from this very excellent hearing and i thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Things would change tomorrow if you could get sued. The problem of getting sued about providing content if you are responsible for everything that flows through your Business Organization in terms of content you probably drive at least new people out of business and maybe put the old people in jeopardy of folding. What i would like to do is make sure that you are earning this Liability Protection. That under section 230 your neutral platform for you to have that Liability Protection when it comes to exploiting children that you are earning it. That we come up with these Business Practices. It seems to me we need to come up with a set of best Business Practices to protect children. Whether it is the device itself. If you have a default we think thats the best thing for the country. Or, if you are a minor, the default kicks in. What i want to do is look at the best Business Practices when it comes to protecting children from exploitation on the internet and if you meet those best practices, you are ok. If you dont, youre going to get sued. Seems to me that will do more good than anything else. The Solutions Come from the people in the private sector as long as they are legitimate and people like you will tell of it tell us if these are legitimate. So rather than the government telling you, you need to find out what does work. And we will certify at the government level whether or not its genuine. And if you pass that sort of government audit then youre good to do. If you dont then you are exposed to lawsuits from moms and dads and everybody else. So thats where id like to take this discussion because 230 is the elephant in the room. What i would like to do is leverage that elephant in the room, that you can have these Liability Protections because we want to save the industry and preserve it for competition. But you have to earn it. And what have i learned from this hearing. Youve got a lot of Liability Protections but you are not doing a whole lot to earn it. Thank you very much for your testimony. Announcer we will have Live Campaign 2020 coverage this afternoon. South best indiana south bend maren president ial can you get Pete Buttigieg is holding it town hall meeting at Nashua Community college in new hampshire. It is expected to start at 6 35 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. A quick reminder, you can cover all of our coverage online at cspan. Org, and listen with our free cspan radio app. At seven 40 5day, p. M. Eastern, Princeton UniversityFetzer Imani Perry on race, gender, and class in america. Ae most recent book is breeze, a letter to my sons. The reality is i have to arm them not simply with a kind of skills a set of skills and intellectual tools that allow them to flourish in school, and ethics, and values. But also a way to make sense of the hostility that they encounter every day from people at times whose responsibility is to treat them as community members. Announcer and it 9 p. M. Eastern on afterwards, Media Research center and founder brad bozell on his book unmasked, big medias war against trump. Decency has been cast aside. But now when donald trump to his opponents opponents to him. Things. 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