Hawley Demands Congress Take Action To Allow Victims Of Online Exploitation To SUE Big Tech

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling this hearing. Thanks to the witnesses for being here. Mr. Pizzurro, let me just start with you. You've been working in the anti-exploitation space for a long time, both inside and outside government, if I got that right? That's correct. And so you know the trends about what we're facing online, what kids are facing online, probably as well or better than anybody. Is that fair to say? I would say pretty so. Would you say that that CSAM, child sexual exploitation or abuse material, would you say that there's getting to be more of it or getting to be less of it? Oh, a hundred percent more, like hundreds and thousands of more. I mean, I can't even percentage it. Yeah, enormous amounts, right? Here's here's a measure of it. In 2023, there were 104 million images and videos of suspected child abuse material uploaded onto the internet, compared to 450,000 in 2004. So 450,000 in 2004 to 104 million in the last full year for which we have data. Here's another statistic. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the number of reports of child exploitation material went from 1 million in 2014 to 36.2 million in 2023. So in other words, it's just an enormous explosion. It's absolutely everywhere. So let me ask you about some of the remedies for this. If you are a parent, and I'm the parent of three young children, three little kids, if you're a parent of a victim of child sexual abuse material and your child's image has been used, they've been exploited, it's been used online, and you've got companies who have hosted that content recklessly or intentionally or negligently or they've done it. If you're a parent, can I sue them and get them to take it down? Right now, no. You could sue them, but I don't know how successful you're going to be. So if I went into court, if my kid is abused, their content is up online, we know the abuser, but we've got these companies that are hosting the content and making money on it by distributing it, and I go to the company. Let's say I go to the company and I say, this sexual abuse material, this is my kid. This is online. I'm reporting it to you. I want you to take it down. Let's say they don't take it down. You're telling me I can't go into court and sue them? You're going to probably end up losing. I mean, and I think that's part of the problem. It's a huge problem, isn't it? You're exactly correct. You're exactly correct. The state of the law is, I cannot go into court and hold these companies accountable. In fact, we had testimony just a few weeks ago of somebody sitting right where you're sitting, a parent whose child was sold drugs, in this case, over one of these platforms, over Snapchat. This parent went in, reported it to Snapchat. Snapchat said, oh, well, you know, we'll do our best. They did nothing. The parent said, I'm going to sue you, and the Snapchat executives laughed in her face, and they said, no, no, you're not. You're not going to sue us because federal law prohibits you from suing us. Let me just ask you this. In 2019, Facebook was fined by the FTC $5 billion, $5 billion with a B, and their stock price went up. Now, what does that tell you about what these companies fear? Do you think they fear these government regulatory agencies that almost never bring suits and almost never bring enforcement? Oh, absolutely not. Do you think that they fear lawsuits from parents who might get into court and get a billion dollar or a $10 billion judgment? For them, it's the cost of doing business, right? Yeah, exactly, and they're willing to pay it. Facebook paid that $5 billion. Their stock price went up. They went right on doing what they were doing. But I tell you what they do fear, what they're absolutely terrified is, they're absolutely terrified of a parent coming into court and getting in front of a jury and holding them accountable, and that is why it is high time, it is past time that this Congress gave parents the ability to do that. And I will just say again, for the approximately three millionth time in this committee, until Congress gives parents the ability to sue, nothing will change. These companies don't care about fines. They don't care about the regulations. In fact, the companies regularly come and sit here and offer to write the regulations. They say, oh, we're great public citizens. We'd love to help you write the regulations, Congress, and we promise to comply. We'll write them and then we'll comply. They won't comply. They buy off the regulators. What they fear are juries, and this is why what Senator Durbin has done with his bill that we worked on together to give parents the right to get into court and have their day in court is absolutely vital. And I'm proud to be working with him on this. It passed unanimously out of this committee last year when he was the chairman, and I look forward to reintroducing it. We make it even stronger, even better this year. But I just say again, there is nothing more important than this Congress can do than to stop this, than to give parents the right and victims the right to get into court and to hold these companies accountable. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.