Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 3397 to crack down on child predators victimizing minors online.
What does SB 3397 do? The bipartisan legislation criminalizes the coercion of minors to commit violent acts against themselves or other people through online communication.
What lawmakers are saying:
- Sen. Ossoff: “Nothing matters more than the safety and well-being of children, and we must protect every child in Georgia from exploitation and abuse. That is why I am working to pass this bipartisan legislation to make sure that law enforcement can prosecute criminals targeting children.”
- Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “Changes in technology have created new opportunities for criminals to harass, exploit, intimidate, and harm American children. These horrific crimes – often committed by violent online groups who take advantage of our nation’s outdated laws – have gone unchecked for far too long.
- Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): “As technology has evolved, so have online child exploiters. Today, offenders are engaging in sadistic online exploitation and coercing kids to take their own lives. Big Tech continues to fail our most vulnerable because they refuse to incorporate safety-by-design measures into their platforms or make meaningful efforts to detect the increasingly violent and depraved sexual exploitation of children on their services.”
Broader Context: Sen. Ossoff is working with Republicans and Democrats to pass SB 3397, also known as the Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online (ECCHO) Act.
First introduced by Sens. Grassley and Durbin, the bipartisan bill would also require all such crimes to be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
According to the NCMEC, there has been a nationwide increase in online child predators attempting to coerce minors into harmful and abusive behavior.
Despite this increase, however, there has yet to be clear legislation that addresses online coercion of a minor, making it difficult to hold these criminals accountable.
SB 3397 will fill that gap by establishing a new federal framework with new criminal offense categories and protections for minors.
