Big platforms face a 60-day clock on CSAM reports

In Washington, the STOP CSAM bill would force internet companies to move faster when they find apparent child sexual abuse material. Once a provider has actual knowledge of the facts or of apparent child pornography on its service, it would have to send a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC, as soon as reasonably possible and no later than 60 days later.

That tighter clock matters because the bill is not just about alerting investigators. It would also require the report to carry more of the context that can help trace what happened, including identifying data, applicable terms of service, certain copies or communications, and signs that the content had already been reported or was synthetically created.

A fuller paper trail

The report would become more than a basic flag. Companies would have to include the kinds of details that can show where the material appeared, what rules governed it, and whether it had already moved through the system before anyone caught it. For platforms that deal with huge volumes of uploads, that turns compliance into a more exacting record-keeping job, not just a faster alert.

The biggest providers would face a separate annual filing on top of that. Those with more than 1 million unique monthly users and more than $50 million in annual revenue would have to submit a yearly report to the attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, broken out by subsidiary and covering the prior year to the extent the information is applicable and reasonably available.

When the paperwork goes public

Those annual reports would not stay inside the government. The Justice Department and FTC would publish them, which would give the public a clearer view of how the largest platforms respond to child-exploitation reports and how often they are filing them.

The publication requirement is where the bill’s pressure becomes visible. It turns what is now mostly a back-office safety process into something lawmakers, watchdogs and the public can inspect, at least in broad outline.

What stays redacted

The bill does leave room to protect the reporting system itself. Officials could redact details if releasing them would undermine safety measures or expose information that bad actors could exploit.

That is the central tradeoff here. STOP CSAM would push companies to report faster and disclose more, but it also tries to avoid handing criminals a playbook for how to work around the system.