Wyden attacks fellow Democrats’ child-internet bills as ‘premier gift’ to predators

Sen. Ron Wyden said on Wednesday that fellow Democrats’ bills to protect children online instead would be gifts to predators of youths.

The Oregon Democrat is leading a charge against several bills pushed by his Democratic colleagues as the number of congressional proposals addressing child safety grows.

The EARN IT Act and STOP CSAM Act aim to make technology platforms accountable for appearances of child sexual abuse material and are set for review in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

A bipartisan Senate coalition reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act on Tuesday with the similar goal of forcing social media companies to eliminate digital danger.

During a conference call organized by the advocacy group Fight for the Future, Mr. Wyden said all three proposals would make children less safe. He said the EARN IT and STOP CSAM acts would weaken encryption that protects children and families despite the well-intentioned goal of stopping child sexual abuse material.

“They will make it easier to punish sites that use encryption to secure private conversations and personal devices,” Mr. Wyden said. “Weakening encryption is probably the premier gift you could give to predators and god-awful people who want to stalk and spy on kids.”

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, has helped shepherd the EARN IT and STOP CSAM Act through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he leads. He is the author of the STOP CSAM Act, which aims to give victims greater ability to sue tech platforms that have facilitated or promoted digital sexual exploitation.

Mr. Durbin, also the Senate majority whip, is among more than 20 Democratic and Republican senators who reintroduced the EARN IT Act last week. The EARN IT Act’s authors say their proposal deals a blow to legal liability protections afforded to tech companies by removing immunity for child sexual abuse material posted by people who use their platforms.

“To all the victim groups and law enforcement entities urging Congress to do something about the scourge of child sexual abuse material and the exploitation of children on the internet: We hear you,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said last week. “The days of children being exploited on the internet and their families being unable to do anything about it are coming to an end.”

Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, are among the EARN IT Act’s sponsors and have revived their Kids Online Safety Act this week.

Their Kids proposal has more than 30 co-sponsors and would require social media platforms to prevent and limit harm to children.

Mr. Blumenthal said lawmakers have purposely narrowed the legislation’s “duty of care” provisions, which require tech companies to prevent and mitigate their platforms’ content from enabling mental health disorders in children.

State attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission would enforce the legislation.

“I think our bill is clarified and improved in a way that meets some of the criticisms,” Mr. Blumenthal told reporters on Tuesday. “We’re not going to solve all of the problems of the world with a single bill, but we are making a measurable, very significant start here.”

Mr. Wyden disagreed.

He said he was concerned that the bill would empower Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans, to censor information and punish LGBTQ children.

“I urge my colleagues to focus on elements that are actually going to protect kids rather than just handing big quantities of more power to MAGA Republicans to wage a culture war against children,” Mr. Wyden said.

He did see opportunity to find common ground. He said he appreciated the revised Kids Online Safety Act’s intention of limiting tech platforms’ addictive design features, and he shared the goal of making the internet safer.

Mr. Wyden said he intends to propose his solution to digital dangers affecting children soon, which involves spending several more billions of taxpayer dollars.

Mr. Wyden wants more federal revenue to fund community-based programs to prevent at-risk children from becoming victims, to buoy programs that support abuse victims, and to give law enforcement the personnel and tools needed to catch predators.

The number of federal proposals to address online harm endangering children is multiplying on Capitol Hill after individual states took action in recent months. In Utah and Arkansas, for example, the governors signed legislation limiting children’s social media usage and requiring age verification and parental consent.