Katharina Buczek
And no matter how many users tried to report the pictures for violating community guidelines and standards, most received a response that the photos shockingly did not.
In turn, the Devins family has been forced to share their gut-wrenching story with the world and advocate for social media companies to abide by a new bill known as Bianca’s Law via a Change.org petition.
“There are no words to adequately describe the pain, anger, and feeling of loss our family is feeling after losing Bianca. And to then have our daughter’s death exploited and mocked on social media is a trauma no family should have to endure,” Kim wrote.
Bianca’s Law aims to preserve open and free speech on the internet while explicitly addressing the circulation of illicit content. The Law hopes to target Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act– which provides legal cover for social media companies to facilitate illicit content– via three prongs.
“A company purposefully acts to promote, solicit, or disseminate illegal content; a company has specific knowledge of content on its site that violates the law; and a company does not remove illegal content after it receives notice of a court ruling that the content violates the law.”
Bianca’s Law would also:
Require social media companies to uphold a public reporting system that allows users to flag illegal content on the service
Require companies to immediately disable and suspend the accounts of perpetrators live-posting murder and accounts impersonating that murderer
Require companies to have, use, and enforce a policy that stops the circulation of banned images
Require companies to provide a crisis response center to respond to parents of child victims in real-time
“Please sign this petition to show lawmakers that we will not tolerate the spread of violent and graphic images on the internet! We need laws enacted to force companies to protect citizens from the trauma and harassment Bianca’s family and friends endured for the past year,” Kim pleaded.
