House lawmakers last week advanced a pair of bipartisan-backed bills designed to strengthen protections for children facing sextortion, blackmail and self-harm coercion.
Two separate bills introduced by Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., aim to expand existing federal laws and equip prosecutors to investigate online abuse as the United States trails efforts in other countries to limit children's exposure online.
"Congress has a responsibility to ensure that our laws keep pace with evolving forms of exploitation and that our law enforcement has the tools it needs to protect victims and hold predators accountable," Lee said.
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Her bill would criminalize the act of knowingly coercing child sex abuse material to produce or transmit sexually explicit material - a threat that's been growing in recent years, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Between 2021 and 2023, NCMEC reports an increase of over 300% in online enticement reports.
In the same period, FBI and Homeland Security investigations revealed 13,000 instances of online blackmail schemes involving minor-related sexual exploitation schemes and at least 20 suicides.
"This legislation ensures that predators who use these threats against children as a weapon can be charged appropriately and sentenced accordingly. No child should ever be placed in a position where they feel trapped, ashamed or hopeless because of an online predator's threat," Lee said.
Similarly, Biggs' bill, the Coercion and Sexual Abuse Free Environment Act, would expand criminal categories for convincing minors to engage in violent acts against themselves or others.
He noted that whole groups of online predators, such as the 764 Network, aim to convince kids to perform the most violent acts possible - even on child-centric gaming platforms like Roblox and Twitch.
"The conduct of [these] groups does not always fit neatly into existing criminal statutes, potentially jeopardizing prosecutions. My legislation criminalizes compelling or enticing a minor to engage in self-harm, resulting in death, engaging in animal crushing or acts of self-mutilation or self-branding," Biggs said.
The two bills, which passed out of the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday, come as Australia recently banned social media use for its teenagers under the age of 16. The ban applies to YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch, Threads and Kick. Companies that fail to take steps to prevent usage for kids under the 16-year-old threshold could face up to $50 million in fines.
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According to polling by Fox News, American parents are voicing a desire to see a similar kind of push in the U.S. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they would support removing cellphones from K-12 classrooms and banning social media for children under the age of 16.
Republicans especially supported the idea, with 73% of them saying they would back such a measure.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also rallied around the legislation introduced by Biggs and Lee.
"I plan to support this bill," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said of Lee's language during the hearing. "It raises very serious issues. It has a very important objective."
Raskin similarly extended his support for Biggs' bill, describing in grave terms the crimes that law enforcement had little ability to prosecute. In one such case, Raskin described how an online group had convinced a victim to take his own life on a live stream.
"The FBI agents who worked on this case repeatedly encountered roadblocks while attempting to get prosecutors to even simply to file charges on the case, with one U.S. attorney telling him it simply wasn't possible," Raskin said.
"The bill before us tries to address the shortcomings in existing federal law when it comes to investigating cases like this. I am prepared to support this legislation."
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Raskin said both pieces of legislation could be stronger, noting that the bill in its current form doesn't expand criminal provisions to some of the more financially-involved crimes associated with sextortion schemes.
With lawmakers out for the holidays, the Combating Online Child Predators Act and the Coercion and Sexual Abuse Free Environment Act won't receive consideration until the new year. It's unclear when it may reach the floor for a vote.
