Teens Targeted: Legislation to combat sexual exploitation, sextortion passes U.S. House, Senate [Video]

(InvestigateTV) — A bill holding social media companies accountable and tackling online sexual exploitation of children needs only the president’s signature to become law.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan REPORT Act bill on April 29. The bill co-authored by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, is designed to protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation.

The bill passed in the U.S. Senate in December.

“This is the first major tech-related legislation that’s passed in a long time aimed at protecting children, and it is every parent’s worst nightmare that their child might be targeted on social media by predators. And this legislation is a major step forward to protect those children,” Ossoff said in an interview with InvestigateTV this month.

Ossoff and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn’s bipartisan bill strengthens the national tipline run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to collect reports of online exploitation and requires that evidence be preserved for a longer period, giving law enforcement more time to …