Taxpayer Watchdog Calls for Robust Law Enforcement Program to Protect Children Online

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday morning, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade is holding a hearing to address harms related to the internet, particularly those related to children. Among others, the issues examined will include how to empower American parents and the merits of age verification. As the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) has long argued, most of the children’s online safety bills presented by the last Congress – such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) – were likely to be both ineffective in attaining their stated goals and found unconstitutional by courts.

In anticipation of the hearing, TPA President David Williams provided the following comment:

“There is a clear choice before this new Congress: It can either pursue the same poorly constructed and unconstitutional proposals, or it can move on to offer legislation that will actually help keep kids safe online. Pursuing censorial bills like KOSA or privacy-devastating proposals like age verification would be a mere continuation of the questionable policies of the previous Congress.

“Instead, legislators should provide additional funding and resources to law enforcement to hunt down and bring to justice the online predators who victimize America’s children. Bad social media regulation does not take a single predator off the streets or off the web. Bills like the 118th Congress’s Invest in Child Safety Act will ensure that state and federal police have what they need to raise the currently abysmal rate at which reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline are investigated and predators arrested.

“Social media platforms, as with any private company, should not be expected to act as law enforcement. Too often, the exploitation of children is done by massive, international criminal enterprises. This is a problem only federal authorities (working with state partners) can fight.

“Protecting children is a fundamental duty of the government. TPA urges Congress to pivot its focus on children’s online safety from what is constitutionally prohibited (a failed approach) to an approach that will truly safeguard America’s children.”