Online Child Safety and Exploitation

The House Judiciary Committee last week advanced two bipartisan bills led by Reps. Laurel Lee of Florida and Andy Biggs of Arizona that would expand federal criminal laws to better prosecute online predators who coerce minors into producing sexual material or engaging in self-harm and other violent acts. Lee’s bill would explicitly criminalize knowingly coercing or blackmailing a child to create or transmit sexually explicit content amid a more than 300% rise in online enticement reports since 2021, while Biggs’ Coercion and Sexual Abuse Free Environment Act would cover convincing minors to commit self-harm resulting in death, animal crushing and other extreme acts that current statutes may not clearly address. The push comes as FBI and DHS investigations have documented roughly 13,000 sextortion-style blackmail schemes involving minors and at least 20 suicides, and as Australia implements a national ban on social media use for children under 16.