May 2, 2024

April Roundup: Major Momentum in the Movement to Make the Internet Safer for Children and Families!

Enough Is Enough^® (EIE) is maximizing its public education and advocacy efforts to protect children and families on the internet. Here are just a few of EIE's recent highlights!

Public Awareness & Education

April 26 - "Wake Up Call Morning Show": EIE's Director of Communications, Kathy Hatem, was a guest on YES FM (Toledo, OH) to discuss Child Abuse Prevention Month and child sexual exploitation in the entertainment industry. She also shared EIE's preventative efforts to keep children safer online.

April 9 - "Next Steps Forward" - Donna Rice Hughes, EIE CEO/President joined Chris Meek to share steps to prevent internet-initiated crimes against children including the knowledge and resources parents need to be aware of to protect their children, as well as cyber security risks and dangers related to social networking, online gaming and mobile devices.

Watch Here

April 8 - The Christian Post: EIE's Donna Rice Hughes and Dean Grigg's Op-Ed "Hollywood scandals ignite a call to expose 'unfruitful works of darkness'" appeared in The Christian Post.

View Here

April 6 - Real America's Voice: Donna joined "Ringside Politics" with Jeff Crouere during a segment recognizing Child Abuse Prevention Month, discussing online dangers including online sexual exploitation faced by children today. She shared numerous risks children are exposed to, as well as what parents need to do to protect their children on all digital devices.

Watch Here

April 2- "Real Talk": Donna's hour-long interview with Dr. David Anderson featured topics including the many dangers kids face online today and EIE's efforts to make the internet safer for children and families.

Listen Here

Donna Rice Hughes briefed top conservative and political leaders as to the state of the union regarding the online exploitation of children and EIE's holistic strategies to prevent these atrocities targeting the innocence of children.

Kathy Hatem presented "Protecting Kids in the Digital World" at Providence Academy in Virginia alerting parents to the scope of online exploitation, shared digital threats, and empowered them with resources and solutions.

Webinar Released: "Understanding Addiction with the Swanbergs"

Addiction experts Mary Lou and George Swanberg spoke with Human Trafficking Expert Bill Woolf to discuss the impact of addiction in all aspects of life and how it fuels exploitation and sex trafficking.

Watch the webinar here.

Communications Campaign Themes

April highlights included a special focus on Child Abuse Prevention Month:

Government and Legislative Priorities

Donna and members of the EIE team were honored to meet with SC Governor Henry McMaster and First Lady, Peggy McMaster. (Pictured left to right- Preston Smith, Jack Hughes, Donna Rice Hughes, Governor McMaster, First Lady McMaster, Dean Grigg.

Building a South Carolina Children's Internet Safety Statewide Initiative

Donna and team met with SC Governor Henry McMaster and First Lady Peggy McMaster to continue discussions to make South Carolina a model state for protecting children from online exploitation. Donna shared EIE's successful campaigns and strategies and how to continue our partnership efforts to prioritize the prevention of online child exploitation in SC that started when the Governor signed EIE's "Children's Internet Safety Governor's Pledge" in 2019.

Donna and team also met with SC Attorney General Alan Wilson and his staff to discuss the dangers of child online sexual exploitation and the importance of education and prevention. EIE looks forward to advancing the SC statewide Children’s Internet Safety Initiative that began when the AG signed the "Children’s Internet Safety State Attorneys General Pledge" to make South Carolina the model state for protecting children from online exploitation. We are grateful to AG Wilson for his extraordinary leadership in SC and nationwide to aggressively enforce the child exploitation and trafficking laws, to bring justice to victims, lock up criminals and rein in Big Tech.

Victories! Movement Momentum: Parents and Lawmakers Say "Enough Is Enough^®!"

Supreme Court Ruling Is In!

REPORT Act Passed

TikTok on Major Deadline To Sell

Big development in the multi-state push to protect children from accessing pornography online! The U.S. Supreme Court will allow Texas to continue enforcing Texas legislation H.B. 1181mandating age verification by online porn sites to prevent minor aged children from viewing pornography. The law also requires pornography websites to include “health warnings” on their landing page. Pornhub previously blocked access to its content in protest of the state's age verification requirement. Several other states have enacted similar laws: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Major Victory...No more Pornhub in these states!
The Revising Existing Procedures On Reporting via Technology Act (REPORT Act) has passed in the House of Representatives! This landmark legislation which EIE has advocated for has already passed the Senate and is a significant leap forward in protecting kids online as it strengthens procedures for reporting suspected online child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) to the CyberTipline.
President Biden signed a bill forcing TikTok to find a new owner within a year or face a nationwide ban in the U.S. over concerns the app poses a major national security threat from the Chinese Communist Party. The legislation targets TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed 5 pieces of legislation in April: HB 1545, which protects children from grooming activities and other sexual offenses; HB 1131, which establishes a grant program within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to create online sting operations to target sexual predators; HB 1235, which creates stricter guidelines for sex offender registration; SB 1224, which strengthens the role of the Statewide Guardian ad Litem Office and implements new training requirements to ensure law enforcement properly assesses a domestic violence situation; and HB 305, which expands the evidence that can be presented to a jury in sex-abuse cases where the victim is a minor and increases penalties on those who take part in sex trafficking of minors.
The Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act (HB 1126) gives parents some extra tools for keeping their children safe online. This bill honors the life and death of Walker Montgomery, a Mississippi teen who lost his life to suicide after falling victim to a social media scam. The bill passed the MS Senate earlier this month.
The U.S. House of Representatives introduced companion bills (HR 7891 and HR 7890) for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). KOSA provides young people with essential online safety protections; COPPA 2.0 would expand privacy protections to children up to age 17.

The Momentum is Growing. The White House is Acting. Congress is Acting. State Governments are Acting. Big Tech is Responding

Thanks to your financial support and advocacy efforts via calls and emails to Congressional members, your voice is making a HUGE impact! You are helping to make a tremendous difference in the battle to protect children online. How do we know? Each day, progress is being made toward enacting sound legislation, and we're holding Big Tech's feet to the fire to act responsibly and with the safety of our children who utilize their apps and platforms in mind!

Will you help us continue our Movement Momentum? We cannot do this without you. Please join Enough Is Enough^® and help us Make the Internet Safer for Children and Families.

We are grateful for any level of support. Every dollar matters! Thank you for staying in the battle with Enough Is Enough^®!

Donna and the EIE Team