On March 25, 2022, Jennifer Buta learned that her son Jordan DeMay, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It comes just hours after a 17-year-old was the victim of “financial sexual abuse” by two brothers from Nigeria who posed online as young women.
Brothers who are He was extradited to the United States and admitted his guilt Last month, a federal indictment charged with sexually abusing minors taunted DeMay into taking her own life after tricking her into sending him a sexually suggestive image and then demanding he pay up.
Buta joins the sadly long list of parents who have lost their children to online sextortion and cyberbullying. Congress, where bipartisanship is increasingly rare, unanimously passed legislation to prevent the list from growing.
President Joe Biden will soon sign a bill modernizing and streamlining child sexual abuse materials. stored and reported Adds new reporting requirements to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and increases penalties for failure to report.
“I’m immersed in it all. It has become my life to talk about Jordan and share his story in hopes that his life will save another child’s life,” Buta told NBC News on Friday. “Financial sexual violence is the fastest growing crime among our teenagers, and change will happen when someone is held accountable for what happens to these kids.”
It was the Reporting Act presented Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. and Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., as well as Reps. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., Susie Lee, D-Nev., Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, and Madeleine Dean, D-Penn.
“It’s monumental and it’s absolutely unanimous,” Blackburn said in an exclusive joint interview with NBC News at the Capitol on Wednesday with Ossoff.
“Social media platforms were not supposed to report bad actors in their space. And then when they were given the information, there was a time limit on how long they could retain that information and then a limit on how they could pass it on,” he said.
Online platforms and social media companies will have to report child sex trafficking and online deception to NCMEC’s tipline after the REPORTING Act, which is expected to come into force within the next week.
NCMEC is a cyber type line currently overloaded. But the new law will help alleviate some of these problems by expanding how long evidence submitted to the tip line is kept and allowing tips to be transferred using modern technology, such as cloud storage, to transfer and store them for the first time. an NCMEC official told NBC News.
“Ensuring that reported content is retained for 1 year gives NCMEC sufficient time to conduct de-conflicts and other analysis of reports to help prioritize report content and provide information to law enforcement,” said Yiota Souras, chief legal officer, in an email. . “It also gives law enforcement important additional time to investigate, serve search warrants on companies to obtain additional information as needed, and more.”
The bill is the first major piece of legislation in years to put enforcement and accountability mechanisms on social media platforms, according to senators.
“This is a historic moment in legislative history to protect children online,” Ossoff said. “There is no parent’s worst nightmare than a young child being preyed upon or, God forbid, being trafficked or scammed by online predators.”
Buta said, along with others being considered in Congress as a bill Children’s Online Safety Acthe could help save his son before it was too late.
“I get a lot of messages on my social media platforms from parents who don’t know what to do, don’t know how to report, and even when I do report,” she said. “It’s not going anywhere, so having this piece of legislation where there’s a simplified rule of thumb for what to do, I think will help inform parents.”
“It’s going to help kids feel comfortable that there’s a place to say anything,” Buta said. “And don’t feel like your voice is being lost because of the volume of work.”