Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was joined by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to celebrate the Senate's passage of the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children’s and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Okay, good afternoon everybody, and I want to thank my colleagues, Senators Blumenthal,
00:16Blackburn, Markey, and we expect Senator Cassidy momentarily, not just for being here today,
00:21but for the amazing, tenacious, never-give-up work they did to get us here on this bill.
00:28Most importantly, though, to all the parents who advocated tirelessly for these bills,
00:36who shared their stories of their kids, who turned their grief into grace, thank you.
00:45They lit a candle.
00:47There's no worse pain and suffering for a parent than losing a child.
00:51That kind of pain is incomprehensible.
00:55No one would fault any grieving parent if they retreated, mourned their children, and
01:00then processed their pain in private.
01:03But these folks did the opposite.
01:06They did what the scriptures say is very noble.
01:09Instead of cursing the darkness, they lit a candle, lighting a candle, working doggedly
01:15to ensure that this might not happen to other children, the horrible things that happened
01:22to theirs.
01:25They endure pain every minute of the day, but they made their children's memories a
01:30blessing in the form of legislation to protect our children from the risks of social media
01:36and other online platforms.
01:39They have shown unimaginable heroic strength.
01:43And today, that strength, that persistence of the parents who never gave up, has paid
01:49off.
01:50For COSA, Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn fought to give kids and parents the tools,
01:55safeguards, and transparency they need to protect our children's health and online
02:01well-being.
02:02It ensures that social media companies have a duty to ensure their products do not cause
02:08harm to kids and teens.
02:10Now, social media has brought a lot of benefits connecting people, but with those benefits
02:15come real risks, and COSA provides important guardrails to guard against those risks.
02:22For COPPA, Senators Markey and Cassidy – welcome – worked to protect personal information
02:28for children and teenagers and ban targeted advertising for children and teens.
02:34Now, these bills don't solve all of the problems online, but this is certainly a large
02:40step in the right direction to protecting children and teens online.
02:46There's more work to be done in areas like AI and like privacy, where we have to work
02:52hard to mitigate risks that come from such a transformational technology.
02:57But today, we passed the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act and the COPPA Act, and each
03:06of the four did great work.
03:09Now that the Senate has done its job, the House should do the same and move on COSA
03:16and COPPA right away when they return.
03:19The bipartisan momentum behind these bills is real, and we should seize this opportunity
03:25to make them into law.
03:27To the parents and families who fought for change, thank you.
03:31And I say that not only as a leader and a Senator, but as a dad and a grandpa who always
03:38worries about what will happen with my little grandchildren when they get a little older.
03:45I promised them that we'd get this done.
03:49I promised them I'd bring it to the floor, and today I've kept my promise.
03:54But most importantly, we are one step closer to making our teens and our children across
04:02the U.S. safer online.
04:04Senator Blumenthal.
04:05Oops.
04:06Let me get this.
04:09Where are you?
04:10Oh, sorry.
04:11Well, first, my thanks to Leader Schumer, who kept his word.
04:18He promised a vote, and he gave us a vote, not just with words, but with his heart.
04:27And his passion has been inspiring.
04:30He has truly felt the pain of parents and advocates who worked through their grief to
04:41inspire and move the United States Senate.
04:45As much as I would like to claim that our eloquence and wit and insight were persuasive,
04:54it is in fact those parents and young people who came to Washington cajoled, convinced,
05:05and ultimately prevailed here.
05:10Young people will take back control over their own lives.
05:13Parents will have tools to safeguard those young people.
05:17They will be able to disconnect from the addictive features and opt out of those black-box
05:25algorithms that drive at them relentlessly the eating disorders, bullying, fentanyl,
05:31sex exploitation, self-harm, and all too often, suicide and bullying.
05:40And so we are on the cusp of a new era.
05:46It is an era of accountability for big tech.
05:51First major significant legislation in almost three decades that provides for reforms, providing
05:59safeguards for people against the excesses and abuses of big tech.
06:05No longer will we rely on big tech when it says, trust us.
06:12They betrayed that trust.
06:14We can't count on them to do it.
06:16And my hope is that the House will recognize that there is an urgency here.
06:22There's a need that cries out for action right away because lives hang in the balance.
06:31And I believe that in these next four weeks, those parents and young people are going to
06:36be as effective with House members as they were with senators.
06:42And they will come back to Washington as kids go back to school with the pleas of those
06:51young people and parents ringing in their ears.
06:56I'm very hopeful that House leadership will move forward because it has expressed a strong
07:02interest and they know as well as we the urgency of this moment.
07:08So we have the opportunity with the momentum of today, a big bipartisan vote to move forward.
07:17I want to thank all of our staff, all of Senator Schumer's staff, and most important, the colleagues
07:27who helped us reach almost three quarters of the Senate now co-sponsors this bill.
07:32And most especially, Senator Blackburn, who has been a partner from the very start.
07:39We've held hearings.
07:40We've crafted, redrafted, revised this legislation to meet concerns that have been expressed.
07:48And she has been a steadfast and courageous partner in this effort.
07:54And thank her for all the hard work she's devoted to this cause.
08:00Thank you very much.
08:01Senator Blackburn.
08:02Thank you, Mr. Leader.
08:05And thank you to Senator Blumenthal and his team.
08:12This has been such a great process.
08:16And we are absolutely thrilled to be at this day where we are getting a vote.
08:23You know, one of the things that is so interesting is how we worked through this process.
08:29Because we were holding hearings at Commerce Committee and looking at big tech and the
08:36governance structure around big tech or the lack thereof.
08:42And as we started those hearings, Senator Blumenthal and I started to hear from parents.
08:49And they wanted to tell us their story of what happened on TikTok or Snapchat or Instagram.
08:59And what happened to their children.
09:02Their stories were personal.
09:05We went through this process with them as they talked about it and used their child's
09:14situation, many times that loss of that child's life.
09:22And turned that into advocacy.
09:27So they went from how were they going to deal with this hurt and this pain into putting
09:33it into advocacy to shape public policy.
09:38And that they have done.
09:40As Senator Blumenthal said, 1998 was the last time there was anything passed that would
09:49protect children in the virtual space.
09:52And as a mom said to me, she said, I don't get this.
09:57Because you cannot sell alcohol, tobacco, pornography to kids.
10:06But they can get online and they can be exposed to that 24-7.
10:11I had a principal who talked to me about the impact of cyberbullying and how children could
10:17no longer get away from the bully because it was on their phone.
10:26And the coalitions, the groups, the parents have just been so wonderful as they sought
10:34to put guidance in place that would allow there to be some rules of the road on the
10:42virtual space.
10:45And this is a safety by design bill, a duty of care bill.
10:51It gives kids and parents a toolbox so that they can protect themselves.
10:57It opens up the algorithms.
11:00And it requires these platforms to go through an audit every single year to make certain
11:07that they are complying with the law.
11:10A message that we're sending to big tech, kids are not your product.
11:18Kids are not your profit source.
11:21And we are going to protect them in the virtual space.
11:26Thank you, Senator Schumer.
11:27Thank you for your leadership on this issue, Senator Schumer.
11:33He cares a lot about this issue, and we're seeing that in this bill passing on the floor
11:40of the Senate today.
11:44In 1998, I was successful in passing the Children Online Privacy Protection Act.
11:55That was for kids 12 and under.
11:56I was the author in 1998.
11:59Pediatricians had come to me saying, as we move to broadband, we're going to need more
12:03protections for children.
12:06But the tech companies were already blocking anything over the age of 12.
12:11Senator Schumer and I voted for that bill on the House floor in 1998.
12:21So all of that was eminently predictable.
12:26And we've come to today where these additional protections are going to be put on the books.
12:35When a teenage girl who's 14 today goes online to get information about bulimia or anorexia,
12:43she can now be targeted with ads because that information is out there.
12:48The Child Online and Teenage Protection Act of 2024 will ban any targeted ads towards
12:59that teenage girl using the information that has been gathered.
13:03It will be prohibited because it will only worsen the condition of that girl.
13:09It will give her more information, which she does not want, and the family would try to
13:16protect the girl from getting.
13:18Number two, the Child Online and Teenage Protection Act will give an erase button over to the
13:25parents and to the teenagers and children to say, erase any information you've gathered
13:32about that child.
13:34Just erase it.
13:35Delete it.
13:36Delete that post.
13:37I do not want it to come back and harm my child when they're older.
13:42Erase it right now.
13:43And third, there has to be permission which is elicited from the teenager to gather the
13:50information in the first place.
13:53It just has to be something that's done with permission.
13:57So no targeted ads, an eraser button, and permission has to be elicited in order to
14:06gather the information in the first place.
14:09When I was a boy and the salesman came to our front door, and I'm nine years old, my
14:15mother would just say that through the letter opener, just tell the salesman, Eddie, your
14:21mother is not home.
14:22And I would tell the salesman that through the letter opener, and then I'd say to my
14:25mother, but you are home.
14:26And she would say, that salesman's not getting into our living room.
14:31Your father is not home.
14:32Well, those salesmen online have gotten around that front door and are into the lives of
14:36teenagers and children in our country.
14:39And what the COPPA 2.0 does is it just says no.
14:45No to gathering the information, no to targeting the kids, and no to gathering the information
14:50in the first place, because that data is the oxygen for these social media companies to
14:54be able to target these kids, and it must end.
14:58So that's where we are today, a Privacy Bill of Rights for teenagers and children in our
15:03country.
15:04And like COSA, Senator Cassidy and I did this completely on a bipartisan basis from
15:14the get-go.
15:15So I just want to thank Senator Cassidy for all of his great work on this issue as well.
15:22I don't know how many times Senator Markey commented and said, you know, I did this in
15:271998 with Billy Tozan, the representative from Louisiana, whoever that is.
15:33And I say that because I looked around and said, like, a lot of people here won't know
15:36who Billy Tozan is.
15:37Why?
15:38Because you were born after 1998.
15:39He was my freshman class colleague.
15:40Was he?
15:411980, yeah.
15:42Which a class that will live in infamy.
15:43Yes.
15:4480 Republicans, 19 Democrats.
15:45They thought it was it for me.
15:46It's the Reagan landslide.
15:58And I say that only to drive home the point that since 1998, how much has changed?
16:06LSU, that was five football coaches together ago.
16:12That was – we've got one LSU fan there, he understands that.
16:18There was no TikTok.
16:21There was no Facebook.
16:22There was no Google.
16:23None of that had happened.
16:25And yet the good work of Billy Tozan and Ed Markey dated from that point.
16:31Look at the interval change.
16:32This is, if you will, the interval update.
16:36This is taking that age of protection from less than 13 up to 17.
16:43Why?
16:44Because back then, we didn't have all this penetrating into the person's mind without
16:49the parents having access to what they were seeing.
16:54But now we do.
16:56And this is Congress being responsive, at its best being responsive both to a societal
17:01need and those of individuals.
17:04Ed mentioned several things.
17:06Again, I just mentioned it increases the age of protection up to 17.
17:10I love that eraser button because every now and then I've noticed teenagers lie once
17:15or twice.
17:16And so they're going to log in, they're going to fake their age, they're going to
17:19start getting stuff that they shouldn't get.
17:21And this gives mom, this gives dad the ability to say, boom, erase it.
17:25And why is this important?
17:26Because everybody in this room knows of somebody, everybody watching knows of somebody who's
17:31had their bulimia, who's had their anxiety, who's had their risk of suicide augmented,
17:37increased.
17:40Think of what the word you want to use because of what's on the internet and the algorithm
17:45just feeding them.
17:46This is Congress's attempt to make sure that that does not happen again.
17:51I thank my colleagues.
17:52Ed's been great to work with.
17:54Leader Schumer, thank you for putting that on the floor.
17:57And it was great to partner both with Blumenthal and Blackburn in two really good bills that
18:02don't do everything, but that begin to make that interval change that protects people,
18:07even those people who are not LSU fans.
18:10What did you root for?
18:11Ole Miss?
18:12Oh, yeah.
18:13Oh, my gosh.
18:14Manning, Eli Manning, Mississippian who went to Miss and the Giants.
18:19Questions on this subject?
18:20I should have known your role.
18:21Yes.
18:22Yes.
18:23Go ahead.
18:24No, we'll give it to the Ole Miss fan.
18:25You should go last.
18:26Why did this take so long to get done?
18:30We looked at every way to try and get this done.
18:33The preference was to first try to get done by UCs, then to put it on must-pass bills.
18:40But I always promised that if we couldn't do it those ways, I would put the bill on
18:44the floor.
18:45And here we are.
18:46Mr. Chairman?
18:47Yes.
18:48You mentioned AI and privacy are some opportunities for the next step.
18:49Do you think that, because this was bipartisan in nature, because you finally got it done,
18:50does it give you hope that you can continue to build on?
18:57Look, we have more to go, and we're going to keep working at it.
19:00This was a good first step, but we have more to go.
19:02Yes.
19:03Go ahead.
19:04The question, if I may, for Senator Markey.
19:05You were, I think, the only one on the stage who opposed the TikTok ban, but you're supporting
19:11this.
19:12It seems like in the House some of the same folks who oppose banning TikTok are also opposing
19:16this bill.
19:17What would you say to those folks about why you think this is a piece of legislation they
19:21should support?
19:22I would say this, that TikTok is being used in ways that is invidious.
19:31It's targeting teenagers and kids, but so isn't Instagram.
19:35So isn't – this is a bill that covers the entire spectrum of social media companies,
19:42whether it be foreign or domestic, and they all have the same business plan, to exploit
19:46these kids, like the tobacco industry, to get them early, get them addicted to whatever
19:52their product is, to whatever they are trying to get them to continue to scroll on.
19:56So we've come a long way.
19:59Back in 1998, only birds tweeted.
20:03A gram was a measurement of weight.
20:07And so we need to update the law.
20:09And to my friends in the House, where I served for many years, I would just urge them to
20:14deal with this issue.
20:15The Surgeon General and the CDC say we have a teenage and child mental health crisis in
20:21our country.
20:24Two years ago, one in 10 teenage girls in America attempted suicide.
20:30One in five LGBTQ youth attempted suicide, and the Surgeon General and the CDC have implicated
20:36social media as a big part of this problem.
20:38So we have to give the tools to parents and to teenagers and children to be able to protect
20:43themselves, and that would be my message to my colleagues in the House.
20:46We cannot avoid this historic moment.
20:47Last question.
20:48Yes.
20:50What are you going to do to encourage members of the House to consider and take up the Senate
20:54version of the bill as opposed to the House companion bill?
20:56Well, I think the first thing we've done today is going to help a lot, the overwhelming
21:01bipartisan vote.
21:02I don't know what the final vote was, but it was something like only two or three people
21:06against.
21:07So that speaks pretty loudly.
21:09But second, I will work with whoever I can in the House to persuade them to get this
21:13done.
21:14Thank you, everybody.
21:15Thank you, Chuck.
21:16Dick, Ed.
21:17Good job.
21:18Good.