Transcript: Children’s Safety in the Digital Era: Strengthening Protections and Addressing Legal Gaps

On Wednesday, February 19, 2025, the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing titled “Children’s Safety in the Digital Era: Strengthening Protections and Addressing Legal Gaps.” The hearing focused on the growing dangers children face online, particularly child sexual exploitation and other online harms, highlighting the failure of Big Tech to implement adequate safeguards, the inadequacy of current legal frameworks like Section 230, and the urgent need for bipartisan legislative action to hold tech companies accountable and protect children.

Witnesses included:

• Rep. Brandon Guffey, Representative, South Carolina House of Representatives
• Carrie Goldberg, Founder, C.A. Goldberg Law Firm
• Mary Graw Leary, Professor, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law
• John Pizzuro, CEO, Raven
• Stephen Balkam, Founder and CEO, Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI)