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MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today joined Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and others on the committee in writing to Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg regarding recent reporting that Instagram’s algorithm promotes and facilitates sexual interest in and activity with children, including the production and sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

“We are gravely concerned that Instagram’s failure to prevent this perverse use of its algorithms is not due to a lack of ability, but instead a lack of initiative and motivation. In other contexts, Meta has taken steps to map out user networks facilitated by its algorithm, and has even been able to suppress unlawful user content within those networks,” the senators wrote.

“Nevertheless, the Stanford experts determined that Instagram has been ‘ineffective’ in preventing the growth of Self-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material (SG-CSAM) networks on its platform, largely because of a ‘general lack of resources devoted to detecting SG-CSAM and associated commercial activity.’ It is alarming that online child sexual exploitation and the proliferation of CSAM, including SGCSAM, is not among Meta’s highest priorities—especially when its platform directly facilitates and bolsters the black market for child sexual abuse material,” they continued.

“This Committee has united across the political aisle to combat the evil of online child sexual exploitation. Tech companies cannot assist malevolent actors who seek to take advantage of children. As the experts at Stanford so succinctly articulated, ‘minors do not have the ability to meaningfully consent to the implications of having widely distributed explicit material and the other harms for which it puts them at risk.’  We refuse to let those who traffic in CSAM subject children to these harms and alter the course of their lives. And we refuse to accept Meta’s facilitation of these crimes. We therefore urge Meta to join us in combatting this threat,” the senators concluded.

Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) also signed the letter.

The letter is available here.

Newly resurfaced footage shows the disturbing DUI arrest of an alleged child rapist who had six young boys and girls in his car along with empty bottles of tequila and Fireball whiskey.

Jeremy Guthrie was arrested last year on a New Mexico highway while driving erratically and police discovered the children — one of which he allegedly raped and impregnated after meeting on social media.

Police bodycam footage from July 5, 2022, showed then 41-year-old Guthrie driving across a highway, and then behaving incoherently once stopped.

When police approached the car they were stunned to find it full of young boys and girls, who Guthrie claimed were “his friends” and insisted with slurred words were all 18.

Read more here.

A full ban on child marriage on Wednesday cleared the Michigan House. The legislation could make Michigan the 10th state to ban the practice that critics call a human rights abuse.

Currently, Michigan is one of seven states that have no legal minimum age for marriage and of the over 5,400 child marriages that occurred in Michigan between 2000 and 2001, according to Unchained at Last, a national nonprofit advocating for an end to child marriage, with 95% of them were marriages between girls and older men.

It is hard to believe child marriage still exists in Michigan, Rep. Kara Hope (D-Holt), who the sponsor of the main bill said on the House floor before votes on the package.

“Often, parents force their kids into marriage because they become pregnant or because they want to be free from their own obligations as parents and in some nightmare scenarios, children become pregnant [with a child rapist’s child] and their own parents make them marry,” Hope said.

Read more here. 

TikTok announced it will establish a youth council that will be tasked with creating safety tools that are more effective for its younger users.

In a blog post shared with NBC News on Monday and published on Tuesday, TikTok said the council, which will comprise teenagers, will provide the company with feedback from younger users about their experiences with TikTok, as well as help the company avoid building safety tools that are “ineffective or inadequate.”

TikTok’s global head of product policy, Julie de Bailliencourt, said the company planned to launch the council in the next few months but did not give a specific date.

​​“It’s still very early stages, but, again, our goal is that we keep designing really effective products and policies that protect young people but also enable them to find a voice,” de Bailliencourt said. “And we absolutely need to listen intently to what young people have to say about this.”

Discord launched in 2015 and quickly emerged as a hub for online gamers, growing through the pandemic to become a destination for communities devoted to topics as varied as crypto trading, YouTube gossip and K-pop. It’s now used by 150 million people worldwide.

But the app has a darker side. In hidden communities and chat rooms, adults have used the platform to groom children before abducting them, trade child sexual exploitation material (CSAM) and extort minors whom they trick into sending nude images.

In a review of international, national and local criminal complaints, news articles and law enforcement communications published since Discord was founded, NBC News identified 35 cases over the past six years in which adults were prosecuted on charges of kidnapping, grooming or sexual assault that allegedly involved communications on Discord. Twenty-two of those cases occurred during or after the Covid pandemic. At least 15 of the prosecutions have resulted in guilty pleas or verdicts, and many of the other cases are still pending.

Read more here.

It’s time for tees, hats, water bottles and beach totes!

Shop the Warriors and help end human trafficking.  It’s 2023. We can and must all do something.

Thank you.

Get a head start on AI challenges at schools this fall

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools and conversational browsers, including ChatGPT, are going to impact every school this fall. How will your school deal with these easy to use tools?

Learn what some of the challenges are going to be for parents, kids and schools in this series of articles: Part 1 and Part 2.

Also, here’s the ChatGPT one-pager you can download to share with schools and community leaders as you bring up the topic.

Stay safe out there!

Acting Governor Susan Bysiewicz  signed a bill that we tirelessly promoted for more than six years to make the marriage age in Connecticut 18, no exceptions.

Connecticut is now the ninth U.S. state where we have helped to end child marriage — a stunning victory for the nearly 6.5 million girls who live in those states! Only 41 states to go.

Previously, dangerous legal loopholes allowed parents to enter 16- and 17-year-olds into marriage in Connecticut with no real legal recourse for a minor who was forced to marry. Emancipated 16- and 17-year-olds could also marry. Marriage before age 18 creates a nightmarish legal trap: Even the most mature minor faces overwhelming legal and practical barriers if they try to resist or escape a forced marriage. Further, marriage before 18 is recognized as a human rights abuse that destroys almost every aspect of an American girl’s life.

Our research​ found that more than 1,250 minors, some as young as 14, were married in Connecticut between 2000 and 2021. Most were girls wed to adult men.

NATIONAL MOVEMENT

Connecticut now joins most of its neighbors in the northeast in eliminating marriage before 18, no exceptions: Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts and Vermont, as well as Minnesota, have all ended child marriage. ​

Learn more here.