ParentsSOS Issues Statement After Crucial Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Online Safety

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Parents for Safe Online Spaces (ParentsSOS), an educational initiative formed by bereaved families to combat online harms, issued the following statement in response to today’s critical Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring CEOs from major social media platforms, including Meta, TikTok, X, Discord, and Snap, to address their companies’ woeful track record keeping children safe online.

“Today’s hearing was an opportunity for our lawmakers to ask the tough, but necessary, questions of Big Tech to learn why they have allowed their products to create such serious harms to our children. Predictably, the five CEOs present gave hollow responses.

As families who live every day with the unfathomable grief of losing a child to online harms, we expect this to be the last hearing. We have all heard enough.

It is well past time for our Senators to act. Now our children’s safety is in their hands and they must pass the Kids Online Safety Act without any more delay. The nine committee members who have yet to sign on as co-sponsors of this bill – Senators Cory Booker, Jon Ossoff, Laphonza Butler, Mazie Hirono, Alex Padilla, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Mike Lee, and John Kennedy – must join their 12 colleagues and do so immediately, moving this legislation forward so it can soon become law.

Because, what argument could our lawmakers possibly make now for continued inaction? How many more children have to die for them to respond in a meaningful way? Do our children’s lives not matter as much as the profits of big business?””

The hearing comes at a pivotal moment for KOSA, a bi-partisan bill designed to impose stringent duties on social media companies to protect minors from online harms. If passed, it will be the first law in 25 years to insulate children from toxic online content. ParentsSOS is instrumental in advocating for KOSA, highlighting the real-life tragedies that have occurred due to the lack of adequate online safeguards.

ParentsSOS will continue to provide educational resources and advocate for legislative change to protect children online. For more information about ParentsSOS and their mission, visit parentssos.org.