BREAKING NEWS: Hawley Unveils Bombshell Doc Leaked By Meta Whistleblower About Child Chatbot Policy

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Ms. Woods, I want to start with you, and I just want to say to you and to your husband, thank you for your courage and your advocacy, and thank you for sharing with us just a little piece of the life of your beautiful son. I'm a father of three myself, two boys and a little girl, and my oldest boy is now a teenager. He just turned 13. And so as I look out at the landscape that he is coming into in social media, I'm terrified by it. But I just know, parent to parent, your son's life is changing the world. He is changing the world, and you giving him voice, as you and your husband are doing, that's the only thing that's going to make change here in Washington, D.C., I can tell you, because who currently has a hammer hold on the United States Senate are the big technology companies who spend endless amounts of money to control the Senate. Let's just be honest. We may as well put a sign on the floor of the Senate that says property of big tech, because nothing moves across that floor, in my observation, nothing that they don't want. They spend money to control and to buy access and influence, and the only thing that will break that, I believe, is the truth of experiences like yours and the voice of your sons to confront lawmakers with the fact that unless we act and do something, unless we stand up to these corporate interests, more and more children like yours will lose their lives, will lose their futures, will lose their hope. So I just want to say thank you, because you are the tip of the spear. I mean, you are what is making the change. I noticed in your testimony, your written testimony, I was reading it just a second ago, I noticed you pointed out that as to your boy, no system protected him, no platform stopped it. And then you pointed out Meta, for example, has features that flag all inappropriate language that we use when making posts, and all that happens almost instantaneously. But as you said a moment ago, nobody flagged anything for you. None of those systems were deployed to help your son. And I think the reality of that is, is that Meta didn't care about deploying systems to help your son, because it didn't make them any money. If it makes them money, they're happy to do it. But it didn't make any money for them to help your son. And so they just stood by. And I just want to point out something that Meta is doing right now. Let's take a look at the Meta chatbot policy. Not only is Meta not protecting kids like your boy, Meta actually is looking to make money by targeting children who are your son's age and younger. This is a document that was leaked by a Meta whistleblower that is their policies when it comes to chatbots with children. And if you look here, the first line, it says, it is acceptable, this is Meta's own words, it is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual. So here Meta is with a deliberate policy to target children, teenagers, your boy's age and younger for the purposes of exploiting them. Why? So they can make money. What are the consequences of that? Well, let's look at another young man who was just a few years younger than your boy. Sewell Seltzer was his name. Sewell was 14. He's a handsome kid. This was a great kid. I've gotten to know his parents and much like your son, Ms. Wood, I mean, this is just a fantastic kid. He also was the victim of sextortion. The difference with your son was is that his sextortion was pursued by a chatbot that wasn't even human. You know, your son's killers are beyond the reach. They're in a different country. They're hiding behind all of the various laws and treaties and of course the platforms themselves. This young man's killer, an AI chatbot, can't be held accountable because they've got special protections that no other corporation in the country or in the world gets. The chatbot that engaged with young Sewell engaged him in sexting activities and then urged him to commit suicide, told him how to commit suicide and tragically he did it. And his parents, much like you now, are giving voice to him, to his legacy. But the true justice that will come for boys like Sewell, for young men like Sewell, for young men like your son, James, and for other young Americans out there is we have to be able to hold these technology companies accountable and that is why I've introduced legislation that will prevent the AI companies from targeting minors with chatbots. It is time for this committee to mark up this bill. Senator Britt is a co-sponsor. Senator Blumenthal is a co-sponsor. Senator Murphy is a co-sponsor. My point is it's bipartisan. This committee needs to mark that bill up and we need to protect our kids from the profiteering of these corporations and we need to do something else. This committee passed unanimously, unanimously legislation that would allow the parents of victims of child sex abuse material, allow them to sue companies that put that child sex abuse material online, that host it knowingly or recklessly. We passed it unanimously. It is languishing on the Senate floor. Unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee months ago and it is sitting on the floor of the Senate. Why? Because big tech fears it. They don't want it to move. I call now today on Senate leadership which is controlled by my party. I call on them to put that bill on the floor. Listen to the testimony of Ms. Woods. Heed, heed the witness of her son. Heed the witness of Sewell Setzer. Listen to the young Americans whose lives have been lost and destroyed by predators. Put this bill on the floor. There is no excuse for further delay. No amount of money from big tech can ever sanction or make right our inability to act, our failure to do so. This committee has acted. It is time for the Senate to act and it would be a travesty inexcusable for this Congress to close out this year without taking action to protect our children. Thank you again all for being here. Thank you Ms. Woods especially for you. Thank you.