民主党人和共和党人周二联合起来，再次推动通过旨在保护年轻人使用互联网的联邦立法，因为一位母亲作证说，她的儿子是因社交媒体上的欺凌而自杀的。

在罕见的两党团结下，参议院司法委员会的立法者利用听证会指责社交媒体公司——“大科技”——阻止国会监管其平台的尝试。

“我不知道你们中的任何人或所有人是否意识到你们今天目睹了什么。但是这个司法委员会跨越了政治光谱，不仅从民主党到共和党，而且从真正的进步派到真正的保守派。你听到的是目标的一致性，”该小组的主席，参议员迪克·德宾。这是第118届国会在多年的政策提案遭遇阻碍后首次讨论这个话题。

2023年1月25日，参议院司法委员会主席迪克·德宾在国会山参加参议院司法委员会关于乔·拜登总统司法提名的听证会。

Leah Millis/路透社，文件

德宾说，在美国年轻人面临隐私、性剥削和精神健康危机的情况下，委员会成员将考虑许多旨在进行技术监管的法案。

听证会由德宾和该委员会的首席共和党人、南卡罗来纳州的林赛·格雷厄姆(Lindsey Graham)召集，此前，乔·拜登总统在国情咨文中再次呼吁对大型科技公司施加更多限制。

拜登上周表示:“现在是时候通过两党立法，阻止大型科技公司在网上收集儿童和青少年的个人数据，禁止针对儿童的广告，并对这些公司收集的我们所有人的个人数据施加更严格的限制。”

虽然该委员会听取了儿童安全倡导者和行业领袖的证词，包括全国失踪和受剥削儿童中心主席和美国心理协会首席科学官，但没有听取科技公司的证人。

俄勒冈州波特兰市的克里斯汀·布赖德(Kristin Bride)是一名证人，她详细描述了她在2020年失去十几岁的儿子卡森(Carson)后如何成为一名活动人士，她说他是Snapchat上匿名网络欺凌信息的目标。

她描述了她儿子16岁时的一个夏夜，当时他兴奋地与家人分享他作为一名披萨店新员工的一天。

“第二天早上，我醒来时完全震惊和恐惧，卡森在我们睡觉时在我们的车库上吊自杀了，”Bride说，并提到后来的调查发现了他手机上的网络欺凌证据。

Bride多次前往华盛顿作证，希望推动针对儿童的技术监管，特别是康涅狄格州民主党参议员Richard Blumenthal和田纳西州共和党参议员Marsha Blackburn推动的《儿童在线安全法》。

该措施要求社交媒体平台为未成年人提供保护其信息的选项，禁用成瘾产品功能，并选择退出算法建议，给予父母监控有害行为的控制权，并规定平台有责任防止和减轻对未成年人的伤害，如促进自残、自杀、饮食失调、药物滥用、性剥削等。

周二，新娘被问及她对反复重温自己的经历有何感受。

“很难一遍又一遍地讲述我们生活中最糟糕的一天的故事，然后看不到变化……我们真的希望呼吁采取行动，我相信你们可以团结起来，为我们和美国的孩子们这样做。”

除了2023年儿童在线安全法案，数十个求婚在国会限制大型科技的措施包括马萨诸塞州的格雷厄姆和民主党参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦提出的一项措施，该措施将建立一个新的消费者保护机构来监管科技行业，以及委员会成员密苏里州共和党参议员乔希·霍利提出的一项提案，将社交媒体年龄要求提高到16岁。

德宾在听证会上说，他正在分发一份他长期致力于遏制儿童性虐待材料传播的法案的讨论草案。

“据我所知，在这一领域提出的法案比任何其他主题都要多。他们都是两党的，”布卢门撒尔说。

Bride就她儿子的死亡对Snapchat提起的诉讼被驳回，她表示，社交媒体公司长期以来一直受到《通信体面法案》第230条中第三方内容无责任条款的保护。

布莱克本周二表示:“这些社交媒体平台几乎就像是在蛮荒的西部时代运营一样。”。

“是大烟草公司...从头再来，”布卢门撒尔说。

Protecting kids online is a bipartisan cause for senators

Democrats and Republicans joined together on Tuesday in a renewed push to pass federal legislation aimed at safeguarding young people using the internet, as a mother testified her son was driven to suicide by bullying on social media.

With rare bipartisan unity, lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee used a hearing to blame social media companies -- "Big Tech" -- for blocking attempts by Congress to regulate their platforms.

"I don't know if any or all of you realize what you witnessed today. But this Judiciary Committee crosses the political spectrum, not just from Democrats to Republicans, but from real progressives to real conservatives. And what you heard was the unanimity of purpose," the panel's chair, Sen Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said at the end of the hearing -- the first time the 118th Congress has addressed the topic following years of policy proposals hitting snags.

Durbin said committee members would consider the many bills aimed at tech regulation amid the privacy, sexual exploitation and mental health crises among young Americans.

The hearing, called by Durbin and the committee's top Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, comes after President Joe Biden renewed calls for more restrictions on Big Tech in his State of the Union address.

"And it's time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us," Biden said last week.

While the committee heard testimony from child safety advocates and industry leaders, including the president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the chief science officer of the American Psychological Association, it did not hear witnesses from tech companies.

One witness, Kristin Bride of Portland, Oregon, detailed how she became an activist after losing her teenage son, Carson, to suicide in 2020 after she said he was the target of floods of anonymous cyberbullying messages on Snapchat.

She described one summer night when her son was 16, when he excitedly shared with his family his day as a new pizza shop employee.

"The next morning, I woke to the complete shock and horror that Carson had hung himself in our garage while we slept," Bride said, mentioning that investigations later found evidence of the cyberbullying on his cell phone.

Bride has made multiple trips to Washington to testify in hopes of moving the needle on tech regulation for children, specifically the Kids' Online Safety Act, being pushed by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

The measure requires that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations, gives parents controls to monitor harmful behaviors and places a responsibility on the platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, such as promotion of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, among other provisions.

On Tuesday, Bride was asked how she felt about repeatedly reliving her experience.

"It is so difficult to tell our stories of the very worst day of our lives over and over and over again and then not see change … we really are looking to call for action, and I am confident that you can all come together and do this for us and for America's children."

In addition to the 2023 Kids' Online Safety Act, the dozens ofproposalsto restrict Big Tech in Congress include a measure from Graham and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts that would create a new consumer protection agency to regulate the tech industry and a proposal from committee member GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri to raise the social media age requirement to 16.

Durbin said during the hearing that he would be he is circulating a discussion draft of a bill he has long worked on to curb the spread of child sexual abuse material.

"There are more bills being introduced in this area than any subject matter that I know of. All of them are bipartisan," said Blumenthal.

Bride, whose lawsuit against Snapchat over what her son's death was dismissed, said social media companies have long been shielded by a no liability provision for third-party content in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

"It is almost as if these social media platforms are operating in the days of the Wild West," Blackburn said Tuesday.

"It's big tobacco's ... playbook all over again," Blumenthal said.

Snap Inc. -- the parent company of Snapchat -- did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment for this story.