A top Senate Republican is launching an inquiry into Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc, X.AI Corp, and five other major tech companies over concerns with their reporting on suspected cases of online child sexual exploitation.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters Wednesday evening to the companies, which also included TikTok Inc, Snap Inc, Discord, Roblox Corp, and Grindr, asking for more information about their efforts to improve reporting on child exploitation.
"I am concerned that some companies have not provided NCMEC and law enforcement with sufficient data needed to protect kids and prosecute suspected predators,” Grassley said to the companies, referring to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He asked the companies to respond by April 22.
Rapid advancements in technology like artificial intelligence have contributed to an uptick in crimes on the internet affecting minors. Lawmakers are trying to address the issue by introducing proposals that seek to crack down on child sexual abuse material online, boost protections for victims, and hold offenders legally accountable.
The Senate Judiciary Committee in February advanced three combined bills, led by Grassley and ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), that aim to address growing threats of child sexual exploitation online.
Grassley’s latest investigation follows new data from NCMEC that found companies failed to submit enough information on suspected child sexual exploitation cases. The data, shared with Grassley in response to his oversight requests, claimed issues with the companies’ reporting practices, such as failures to include information about the victim and suspect, and failures to disclose child sexual abuse material in AI training data.
"Without this data, reports can be ‘unactionable by law enforcement, leaving children vulnerable to online sexual offenders and subjecting survivors of online exploitation to repeated revictimization,’” Grassley said in the letters, referencing NCMEC’s March 16 report.
The eight companies at question altogether submitted more than 17 million reports of suspected child exploitation in 2025, accounting for over 80% of CyberTipline reports submitted to NCMEC, the organisation said.
Companies Share Commitments
Meta said it has been working closely with NCMEC for years on reporting of suspected child exploitation on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, and plans to continue that partnership to make reports "as valuable as possible,” spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement.
"We partnered with NCMEC to streamline our reporting process by grouping duplicate viral or meme content into a single cybertip. This contributed significantly to the drop in cybertips in 2024, and allowed NCMEC and law enforcement to more easily manage and prioritise them,” Stone said, pointing to recent efforts.
A Discord spokesperson said in a statement that the company has a "longstanding, collaborative relationship” with NCMEC and "remain in regular communication with them.”
"We are grateful for the Senator’s leadership over the years on this critical issue,” the spokesperson said, adding that Discord plans to continue engaging on the priority.
Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said the company has received Grassley’s letter and is reviewing it. "We are committed to a productive dialogue with the Senator and NCMEC regarding our shared goal of keeping children safe online,” he said.
A Snap spokesperson said the company takes "these concerns seriously” and will "respond directly to the Senator and continue advancing our efforts to combat child sexual online exploitation,” highlighting an August blog post about its reporting efforts.
Grindr said the company welcomes the opportunity to share its policies to "proactively monitor for, identify, and report” child sexual abuse material to NCMEC.
"Grindr is exclusively for adults aged 18 or over, and we take preventing CSAM with the utmost seriousness,” a spokesperson said in statement, referencing efforts to ban suspected accounts and work with law enforcement on investigations.
The three other companies under inquiry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. – Bloomberg
