BATON ROUGE – The House Commerce Committee advanced a bill Monday that would regulate the process for reporting suspected child exploitation on online sites.
These platforms include online platforms, online video games, messaging apps, and video streaming services. The regulation would apply only to for-profit platforms, not non-profits.
Rep. Laurie Schlegel, R-Metairie, filed the bill to strengthen the process for tracking down online predators by requiring platforms to provide an easy, clear, and usable reporting mechanism.
“For all of my child protection bills, I ultimately just want big tech to just do the right thing when it comes to protecting children,” Schlegel said.
The bill would grant Attorney General Liz Murrill the authority to investigate and initiate legal action against online platforms that allegedly fail to comply with the required reporting mechanisms. Platforms would be given 30 days' notice before a potential investigation into their reporting systems, and could be fined $5,000.
Concerns about the bill's long-term effects, if passed into law, left some lawmakers worried about future implications.
“We can’t pass laws based on who’s in office at this point,” said Rep. Daryl Deshotel, R-Marksville. “We have to think about further down the road, and I wouldn’t want that office to have the ability to target specific organizations based on what they’re trying to produce.”
