Law changes how social media platforms report child exploitation

The Report Act, introduced by Senator Jon Ossoff and Senator Marsha Blackburn and created in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, now requires websites and social media platforms to report child sex trafficking and online enticement. In 2025, NCMEC identified and escalated for law enforcement more than 53,000 reports that were urgent or involved a child in imminent danger. NCMEC Chief Legal Officer Yiota Souras stated the organization has seen an over 1,000 percent increase in these reports during the law's first active year. The law also requires evidence to be preserved for a longer period, giving law enforcement more time to investigate and prosecute crimes, and increases fines to companies that knowingly fail to report material on their site.

Expanded reporting mandates that capture sex trafficking and online enticement alongside child sexual abuse material increase the volume of incidents routed to NCMEC but do not alter the time between the initial contact and the moment the report is filed. A 1,000 percent increase in reports reflects both improved compliance and a widening threat surface that retrospective reporting cannot address at the point of first contact. Detection with dedicated anti-grooming and anti-sextortion filters monitoring children's direct messages in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and others intercepts the enticement or trafficking approach before the predatory relationship is established, flagging the threat pattern to a parent, school or authority empowered to act immediately rather than waiting for the platform to detect, report and for law enforcement to triage the case days or weeks later.