'No Amount of Money Justifies This': Senator Hawley Calls for Protecting Children Online

[00:00:00] No amount of money justifies subjecting [00:00:03] our children to sexual abuse. No amount [00:00:06] of money justifies extortion of children [00:00:09] on these platforms. I don't care what [00:00:11] Facebook's market cap is today or [00:00:14] tomorrow. I don't care how much money [00:00:15] Google makes next quarter. It does not [00:00:17] justify the degradation of American [00:00:20] children. Not now, not ever. And this [00:00:23] body has a moral obligation to stand for [00:00:26] that principle and to vindicate it for [00:00:28] every parent and every child in America. [00:00:30] It is why we are here. It is our [00:00:33] obligation and our responsibility. And [00:00:35] that's what this bill does. This is a [00:00:38] very simple bill as Senator Durban [00:00:40] described. It simply allows the victims [00:00:44] of sex abuse material or their parents [00:00:46] to get into court and to make their case [00:00:49] against these companies. And it is not [00:00:51] unfair to the companies. The companies [00:00:54] are held to a very simple standard. Did [00:00:56] they knowingly or recklessly host this [00:00:59] content? Now, let me just say this. We [00:01:01] all know that these companies will [00:01:04] deploy algorithms to the end of the [00:01:06] earth in order to target our kids, in [00:01:09] order to advertise to our kids. They [00:01:11] know every detail, every cintillaa of [00:01:13] action that occurs on their platforms. [00:01:15] They know about it because they're [00:01:17] making money off of it. And yet when we [00:01:19] bring them before this body and put them [00:01:22] under oath, the executives of these [00:01:23] companies say, "Oh, we couldn't possibly [00:01:26] get rid of all the CSAM, all the sex [00:01:28] abuse material. We just don't have the [00:01:30] technology for it." Oh, yes, they do. [00:01:32] They do, but they don't want to root out [00:01:35] the CSAM because they are making money [00:01:37] on it. Because sex material online [00:01:39] drives engagement online, which drives [00:01:42] more eyeballs online, which drives [00:01:44] advertising dollars online.