Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this week the Senate is taking a historic step in the fight to protect children online by bringing the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act to the floor. Last Congress, Senator Blumenthal and I introduced KOSA following disturbing reports that Meta leadership knew its platform Instagram is toxic to teenage girls, causing rising rates of eating disorders and mental health issues, but Meta downplayed these harms in public. During a series of five subcommittee hearings, we heard testimony from social media companies, advocates, and parents on the repeated failures of tech giants to protect kids, to protect them from pro- suicide content, from drug dealers, from sexual predators, from eating disorder content, from human traffickers, and so much more. For years, the Big Tech giants refused to meaningfully address these problems, but that changes with KOSA, which will finally hold them accountable. Congress has not passed a major law to protect children online since 1998, and a lot has changed in the last 25 years. But this moment would have been impossible without the hundreds of parents, including many who have tragically lost their children to social media harms. They have traveled to Washington over the past several years to share their heartbreaking stories and to demand action to protect our children.…”