During a press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) spoke in support of the Kids Online Safety Act.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Mr. Leader, and thank you to Senator Blumenthal and his team.
00:09This has been such a great process, and we are absolutely thrilled to be at this day
00:17where we are getting a vote.
00:20You know, one of the things that is so interesting is how we worked through this process.
00:27Because we were holding hearings at Commerce Committee and looking at big tech and the
00:33governance structure around big tech or the lack thereof.
00:39And as we started those hearings, Senator Blumenthal and I started to hear from parents.
00:46And they wanted to tell us their story of what happened on TikTok or Snapchat or Instagram.
00:57And what happened to their children.
01:00Their stories were personal.
01:03We went through this process with them as they talked about it and used their child's
01:11situation, many times that loss of that child's life, and turned that into advocacy.
01:24So they went from how were they going to deal with this hurt and this pain into putting
01:30it into advocacy to shape public policy.
01:36And that they have done.
01:38As Senator Blumenthal said, 1998 was the last time there was anything passed that would
01:46protect children in the virtual space.
01:49And as a mom said to me, she said, I don't get this.
01:55Because you cannot sell alcohol, tobacco, pornography to kids.
02:03But they can get online and they can be exposed to that 24-7.
02:08I had a principal who talked to me about the impact of cyberbullying and how children could
02:15no longer get away from the bully because it was on their phone.
02:23And the coalitions, the groups, the parents have just been so wonderful as they sought
02:31to put guidance in place that would allow there to be some rules of the road on the
02:40virtual space.
02:42And this is a safety-by-design bill, a duty-of-care bill.
02:48It gives kids and parents a toolbox so that they can protect themselves.
02:54It opens up the algorithms.
02:57And it requires these platforms to go through an audit every single year to make certain
03:04that they are complying with the law.
03:08A message that we're sending to Big Tech, kids are not your product.
03:15Kids are not your profit source.
03:18And we are going to protect them in the virtual space.