STOP CSAM Act
proposed law seeking to combat online child sexual abuse materials
The Strengthening Transparency and Obligations to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment Act, or STOP CSAM Act, is a proposed United States federal legislation sponsored by Senators Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin. First introduced in 2023 and reintroduced in 2025, the bill would create a cause of action that allows victims of online child sexual exploitation to bring civil lawsuits against online platforms.
The bill received some bipartisan support, but also prompted opposition from Senator Ron Wyden and several privacy and civil liberties organizations, who stated that it could incentivize online platforms to restrict lawful speech and potentially affect the availability of end-to-end encrypted services.
Provisions
Reporting
If passed, the STOP CSAM Act would expand reporting obligations for online service providers. Under the Act, online platforms that obtain actual knowledge of an apparent violation involving child sexual abuse material (CSAM) are required to submit a report to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) CyberTipline as soon as possible, but no later than 60 days after acquiring such knowledge. Reports must include certain information, including available information about the minor depicted and the provider’s terms of service in force at the time of the violation. The STOP CSAM Act also makes mandatory previously optional categories of reporting, including reports relating to knowledge of "planned or imminent" child exploitation.
The Act requires online providers with over 1 million unique monthly visitors and with revenue over $50 million to submit annual reports to the United States Attorney General and Chair of the Federal Trade Commission. These reports must include information about the provider’s actions to address notifications of child exploitation, measures taken to promote a culture of safety, and other details.
Penalties and liabilities
The Act establishes civil and criminal penalties for online service providers that knowingly fail to comply with reporting and preservation requirements.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “STOP CSAM Act” is proposed law seeking to combat online child sexual abuse materials. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through STOP, CSAM and proposed, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “proposed law seeking to combat online child sexual abuse materials” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q137918785. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2023 and 2025.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “STOP CSAM Act”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow STOP CSAM Act primary sources, STOP CSAM Act archive and STOP research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “STOP CSAM Act”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “STOP CSAM Act” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.