WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, today delivered the following opening statement at the Judiciary Committee hearing on Children’s Safety in the Digital Era: Strengthening Protections and Addressing Legal Gaps.

A transcript of Klobuchar’s full opening statement is available below and a video can be downloaded here. 

Senator Klobuchar: Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I am truly looking forward to working with Senator Blackburn on this important Subcommittee. As many of you know, Senator Lee and I chaired the Antitrust Subcommittee for a long time, but I actually think this situation right now, with the possibility of moving on these bills, is going to be a very positive development.

As Senator Blackburn just pointed out, despite the strong support that we have had from Senator Durbin and Senator Grassley and Senator Graham when he chaired this Committee, or was the ranking on this Committee, we've just continued to run into roadblocks to passing these laws, and it's getting absolutely absurd.

Senator Grassley is well aware of the antitrust tech bill that he and I lead, that hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent against it in TV ads, and despite the fact that the companies, FAANG [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google] as we call them, have agreed in other countries to some of these consumer protections that did not happen in America.

I think that this piece of it—whether it's Instagram's promotion of content that encourages eating disorders, frightening rise of non-consensual AI-generated pornographic deep fakes, or the tragic stories of kids losing their lives to fentanyl-laced pills—will most likely be leading the way as we continue to push our antitrust and privacy and news bills.

Just this month, this committee heard from Bridgette Norring of Hastings, Minnesota. Her son, Devin, was struggling with migraines, and bought what he thought was a Percocet over Snapchat to deal with the pain. But it really wasn't a Percocet, it was a fake pill laced with fentanyl. And with that one pill, as we say, “one pill kills,” he died at age 19.

For too long, the companies have turned a blind eye when young children joined their platforms; used algorithms that pushed harmful content—they have done that; and provided a venue for dealers to sell deadly drugs like fentanyl.

We know that social media also increases the risk of mental illness, addiction, exploitation, and even suicide among kids. I will never forget the testimony of the FBI Director telling us that in just one year, I believe it was 2023, over 20 kids had committed suicide just because of the pornography and the images that had been put out there when they were innocently sending a picture to who they thought was a girlfriend or a boyfriend.

That's why this committee has taken this on on a bipartisan basis, and I am hopeful that this hearing will be the beginning of actually passing these bills into law.

Representative Guffey, you and I met through Senator Cruz, and the bill that he and I have, the TAKE IT DOWN Act. We have an additional bill that Senator Cornyn and I have that's really important, that's passed through this committee, the SHIELD Act. And as you know all too well, the threat of dissemination alone can be tragic, especially for kids. We need to enact the Kids Online Safety Act, which, thanks to Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn, [has] passed the Senate on a 91-3 vote. As we know, some of these are stalled out in the House.

We need to get the federal rules of the road in place for safeguarding our data. According to a recent study, social media platforms generated $11 billion in revenue in 2022 from advertising directed at kids and teenagers, including $2 billion in ad profits derived from users age 12 and under.

I am supportive, as was mentioned by Senator Durbin, of the legislation that he and Senator Graham and Hawley and many others have to open the courtroom doors to those harmed by social media by making those reforms to Section 230. That legislation was enacted long before any of this was going on.

And somehow, with respect to other industries, we've been able to make smart decisions to put more safety rules in place. Just ask those passengers that were on that flight that flipped upside down in Toronto, who were in those seats that were the result of safety rules that were put in place. And yet, when it comes to this, we just put up our hands and say, “no, they're lobbying against us,” or “they have too [much] money,” or “we like some of the people that work there.” And we do nothing.

And by doing nothing, instead of reaching some reasonable accommodations of settlements or things we can do on legislation, we just let them run wild at the expense of our kids’ lives. Thank you.

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