Blackburn Ossoff

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) discuss their 2024 passage of the REPORT Act, which has now been signed into law, in an as of yet unreleased interview.

 Courtesy of the office of Sen. Marsha Blackburn

Tennessee's senior U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn is celebrating President Joe Biden's signing into law the Revising Existing Procedures on Reporting via Technology (REPORT) Act, which will strengthen online safeguards for children.

The law updates requirements for tech companies, including social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, to report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) when they become aware of violations involving the online sexual exploitation of children.

Specifically, the legislation also increases the amount of time — from 90 days to one year — that a provider must preserve the contents of a report. It also requires providers to “report apparent violations involving the sexual exploitation of children to instances involving child sex trafficking or coercion or enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution or any other illegal sexual activity,” as well as increasing fines for providers who fail to submit reports.

Blackburn said that social media companies will be subject to “regular reviews” to ensure that the new law is being followed.

“In talking with judges and prosecutors in Tennessee, we realized that there were some changes that could be made to broaden the way this information was kept and transmitted, and that length of time, and it would be helpful to getting these people prosecuted, and then getting them imprisoned,” Blackburn told reporters in a virtual press conference on May 2.

The REPORT Act earned endorsements from NCMEC, as well as from the International Justice Mission, ECPAT-USA, Fraternal Order of Police, ChildFund International, the End Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Coalition, Wired Human, Raven, and Internet Works.

Biden signed the legislation into law on Tuesday, just over one year after the legislation was introduced on Capitol Hill and championed by both Blackburn and Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

The duo may seem like unlikely allies — especially as Blackburn repeatedly characterized Ossoff as a “radical socialist” who “is bought and paid for by the Communist Chinese Party” during the 2020 election — but the pair worked to pass the legislation with extensive bipartisan support in Congress.

“At a time of such division in Congress, we successfully brought Republicans and Democrats together to protect kids on the internet, and now our bill is law,” Ossoff said in a news release.

Blackburn said she is continuing to work on and support similar legislative efforts including the Kids Online Safety Act and the EARN IT Act, both of which have been introduced but have stalled in the Senate.

“The good thing is that people are beginning to say, look, there are laws in the physical space that are there to protect our children," Blackburn said. "What has happened is that in the virtual space, our children are exposed to all sorts of harm."