Preventing Rampant Online Technological Exploitation and Criminal Trafficking Act of 2024

Short title— This Act may be cited as the “Preventing Rampant Online Technological Exploitation and Criminal Trafficking Act of 2024” or the “PROTECT Act”.

Table of contents— The table of contents for this Act is as follows:

In the United States, reports of child sexual abuse material (referred to in this section as “CSAM”) have grown exponentially in recent years, from 3,000 reports in 1998 to more than 1,000,000 in 2014 and 18,400,000 in 2018. The New York Times called it an “almost unfathomable” increase in criminal behavior.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (referred to in this section as “NCMEC”), which is based in the United States, recorded more than 29,300,000 reports of suspected CSAM to its CyberTipline in 2021, the highest number of reports ever received in a single year and a 35 percent increase from 2020. Those reports included 85,000,000 images, videos, and other files of suspected CSAM and incident-related content.

Recent trends reported by NCMEC include increasingly graphic and violent sexual abuse images, and videos of infants and young children.

The Daily, a podcast hosted by the New York Times, reported in 2019 that CSAM had so overwhelmed law enforcement agencies in the United States that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example, had prioritized investigating material depicting infants and toddlers, not older children.

The COVID–19 pandemic has resulted in a surge in the online distribution of CSAM, which was remarkably high even before the pandemic. During the pandemic, NCMEC reported a 106-percent increase in the sharing of CSAM globally. The increased number of offenders exchanging CSAM during lockdowns has continued to stimulate demand for CSAM beyond the lockdowns.

Project Arachnid is a web platform administered by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (referred to in this section as “C3P”) that is designed to detect known images of CSAM and issue removal notices to electronic service providers when possible. C3P has reported, “It is a common misconception that CSAM and harmful-abusive content are relegated solely to the dark web.”. In fact, 97 percent of the illegal media detected by Project Arachnid hides in plain sight on the clear web on image or file hosting services, forums, content delivery networks, and both mainstream adult pornography sites, such as Pornhub, XVideos, OnlyFans, and YouPorn, and fringe adult pornography sites.

In 2021, NCMEC reported that a majority of CSAM reports, more than 29,157,083 out of 29,397,681, came from electronic service providers.

An alarming and increasing number of adults are being depicted in online pornography without their knowledge or consent. These individuals are often victims of sexual abuse, sex trafficking, rape, sexual exploitation, sextortion, and forms of image-based sexual abuse such as nonconsensual distribution of sexually explicit material.

Most pornography websites do not effectively verify the age of the users who upload content to their platforms. Nor do these websites make an effort to effectively verify the age, consent, or identity of all individuals who are depicted in the pornographic content.

Pornography websites attract hundreds of millions of visitors daily. The 2 most-visited pornography websites in 2023, for example, reported attracting more than 693,500,000 and 629,500,000 monthly users, respectively, each exceeding the traffic of Netflix, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or LinkedIn.

Pornography websites profit from the content uploaded to their platforms, including content that depicts or involves rape, child exploitation and abuse, and sex trafficking. In 2019, 6 high-level individuals employed by an online pornographic distributor were convicted of sex trafficking. Over an 11-year period, that platform generated more than $17,000,000 in revenue.

Not only are high-ranking officers of pornography websites aware of the proliferation of CSAM material on their platforms, but they appear to knowingly decline to investigate reports of nonconsensual or underage sexually explicit materials on the platforms. A 2021 lawsuit revealed that Pornhub’s parent company Aylo, at the time known as MindGeed USA Incorporated, had a policy to only review videos flagged for rape or sexual abuse if the video received at least 16 unique reports. If a video had 15 or fewer reports, Pornhub refused to investigate. Internal emails stated that as of May 27, 2020, Pornhub had a backlog of 706,425 videos of possible rape or child sexual abuse with 15 or fewer reports. At the time of the lawsuit, only 1 out of Pornhub’s 1,400 total employees was tasked with reviewing videos reported for violence or CSAM full-time. Pornhub’s chief executive officer called these policies “good and reasonable”.

The ongoing exploitation of underage or nonconsenting individuals by highly-visited pornography websites is evidenced by a recent series of successful lawsuits. One case, involving 22 victims of sex trafficking and fraud, concluded in a nearly $13,000,000 verdict against a pornography content producer who coerced women and children into producing sexual content. Another 34 women, some of whom are victims of child sex trafficking, filed a lawsuit against a pornographic website for failing to take proper precautions to verify the content uploaded to its platform and monetizing the illegal content.

The internet has revolutionized the pornography industry, making pornographic content incomparably more available, accessible, affordable, and anonymous than at any previous time in the history of the United States. Today, substantial majorities of teenagers have viewed pornography. A United States population-based probability study found that 84 percent of males and 57 percent of females between the ages of 14 and 18 have viewed pornography, belying the industry’s faux status as so-called “adult entertainment”. Moreover, pornography has contributed to the normalization of sexual violence among the youth of the United States. Numerous studies have demonstrated that viewing pornography harms youth, as it contributes to sexually violent attitudes and conduct towards children and adults and creates unrealistic expectations for intimate relationships. Additionally, research has demonstrated that the demand for online pornography has fueled an increase in purchasing sex from prostituted or sex trafficked individuals.

The online pornography industry has remained unchecked and generally immune from regulations. Online creators and distributors of pornographic content should be held to standards that require informed and thorough consent as well as age-verification. Currently, no substantive laws govern consent in pornography, which has permitted rampant abuses to occur.

Companies should not profit from the sexual exploitation of children and adults. Requiring pornographic websites to verify the age, consent, and identity of individuals appearing in pornographic content on their platforms would substantially curb the rampant exploitation of all children and adults online.

The harm to victims of CSAM and image-based sexual abuse is deep and enduring. Every time an image or video of their exploitation is shared, their abuse is repeated and amplified.

In general— In this Act:

Terms defined in section 2256 of title 18, United States Code— For purposes of subsection (a)—