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Floor Speech
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, on May 4, 2019, 15-year-old Mason Bogard died after trying to mimic a choking challenge he saw on social media.
Three days earlier, his parents had found him unconscious in his room with a belt around his neck. There was nothing his doctors could do over that 3-day period to save his life. I am telling Mason's story today, with the permission of his mother, because it is so different from other stories.
I have shared a lot of these stories about the dangerous influence that online platforms have on our Nation's children. There is no evidence to suggest Mason was trying to hurt himself. This death was an accident.
We know this because after Mason died, his parents found a self- recorded video on his phone that had happened days prior to the accident. It shows him attempting the same viral challenge that killed him.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to speak with Mason's mom Joann about what she is doing to warn other parents about what is happening on these platforms.
Even before she lost her son, Joann knew about the dangers that social media could bring into her home. And she did everything in her power to protect her children from it. She used watchdog apps, physically checked their devices, and had candid conversations with the whole family about how dangerous content can be when it is popping up in your news feed.
At this point, I want to share what Joann told me about her efforts to make online platforms keep their promises about moderating and removing dangerous content like choking challenges.
And I am quoting Joann:
Shortly after Mason's death, I began searching for Choking Challenge videos on all of the platforms. I searched for them weekly and I have reported hundreds. But the typical reply that I receive, if I receive a reply at all is--
And she quotes the social media platforms-- ``We found that the reported content doesn't violate our Community Guidelines. We understand that you may not want to see this type content, and you have the option to block the account that posted it.''
She went on to tell me that there was no process for an appeal, no way to push for answers from these so-called moderators. The videos stayed online. I would remind my colleagues that the response she is describing was generated after she reported videos of children strangling themselves in order to get clicks.
This is one woman's story about one precious child--her child--who died because an online platform, a social media platform failed him. But thousands of parents can tell you similar stories about how their children got caught up in viral trends or emotionally spiraled after encountering content that preyed upon their insecurities.
And while we know that social media isn't the only cause for this decline in mental health, we do know that things have gotten much worse since kids started spending so much time online.
According to the Pew Research Center, close to 60 percent of our Nation's youth have experienced some form of abuse online. It is safe to assume that at least that many have been exposed to content glorifying bullying, mental illness, and self-harm.
Between 2010 and 2019 teen depression rates doubled, with the largest increase among girls. The CDC recently produced data showing that adolescents are now the most likely age group to visit the emergency room for suicidal thoughts, with nearly one in three teen girls seriously considering attempting suicide.
Before the rise of social media, suicide by the young had stabilized and declined for decades. Now, it is the third leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 15 and 24.
The Consumer Protection Subcommittee, where I serve, has produced five hearings' worth of evidence showing that harmful content is readily available to minors, that online platforms are aware of this, and that they have made the conscious decision to ignore it. Think about that.
They have proved time and again that they will not follow through on their commitment to moderate harmful content unless they are forced to do so. So I think it is time that we force them to take action.
It is going to be a long road, and I am going to be blunt. When it comes to putting guardrails on Silicon Valley, there are a million different ways to get it wrong. But, over the years, Congress has learned some valuable lessons, and now we know how to fix the problem, instead of just putting an expensive bandaid on that problem.
First, I am all for encouraging innovation, but let's be clear: The motto ``move fast and break things'' has a cost, and we don't want that cost to be imposed on our children.
We know that Big Tech will never hold themselves accountable to any acceptable safety standard. The creation of safety by design and the resulting accountability should be our goal.
Second, we want to make sure that these safety standards don't allow these companies to take their hands off the wheel once certain requirements are met. Verifying a user's age or obtaining parental consent for minors to use the platforms--that is important, but it will not stop children from getting bombarded with dangerous content once they are online.
And, finally, legislation must not simply shift the burden of controlling the spread of this dangerous content onto the parents. This is precisely what Big Tech companies have been doing for years, and it is not working. Parents want to be involved, but they cannot protect their children if the platforms keep moving the goalposts to protect their business models.
Unfortunately, when our children are on these platforms, our children are the product. These platforms data mine our children, and then they market that data.
We have seen proposal after proposal fail, but after years of talking to parents and tech companies and policy experts, we finally have the opportunity to support a bill that does get it right.
Last week, Senator Blumenthal and I reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act. As of today, this bill has 33 bipartisan cosponsors and the endorsement of hundreds of bipartisan organizations because it does exactly what moms like Joann Bogard and other advocates have been asking Congress to do.
First, it would force platforms to give families the ability to protect minors' information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations.
Next, it would give parents the safeguards needed to protect their kids online, as well as a dedicated portal to report harmful behavior.
Predatory content and content that promotes self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders--all of this that causes problems for our kids would become a problem that the platforms have to deal with--no more denial, no more deflection.
We also included requirements for annual risk assessments and access to datasets we can use to assess safety threats to underage users.
This is a very straightforward bill. It won't hinder innovation. It won't allow platforms to take their hands off the wheel, and it won't put the burden on parents to try to figure out how in the world to control the access their children have to this harmful content.
Our children are exposed to things in the virtual space that we would never allow them to be exposed to in the physical space. Over the past few years we have heard pundit after armchair pundit insist that it is time to treat our kids like grownups. But our children are not adults, and it is our responsibility to protect them so that, one day, they will have the opportunity to be grownups. Our children are being exposed to things that no reasonable parent would ever allow their child to know about these things.
If there is one thing we have learned during our hearings with the Consumer Protection Subcommittee, it is that simply encouraging more supervision is not enough. A high-tech permission slip just isn't going to cut it. If we want to keep kids safe online, we have to demand real accountability from these Big Tech social media platforms.
Last Congress, the Kids Online Safety Act passed out of the Commerce Committee 28 to 0. That is right--unanimous support. I would ask my colleagues on each side of the aisle to join me and Senator Blumenthal in calling for a vote so that we can finally push this bill across the finish line and provide parents the toolbox they need to protect their children from the harm in the virtual media.
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