Senate parents band together to push for ban on social media for kids

Senator Katie Britt says she hears about it often when she’s home in Alabama — at school track meets, basketball tournaments and on her regular morning walks with friends. And when he ran for the Senate last year, Britt said, “parent after parent” came to him wanting to talk about the process. social media harming their children.

Britt also explores the issue in her own home, as the mother of a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old.

“Enough is enough,” said Britt, a Republican who last week introduced bipartisan legislation with three other senators — all parents of children and teens — to try to better protect the children online. “The time to act is now.”

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, too, spoke of this himself as the father of an 11-year-old and 14-year-old. Murphy said he’s seen improvements in social media, such as connectivity during the coronavirus pandemic and silly videos that bring them joy. But he’s also seen failures, including kids he knows who he says have ventured into the dark corners of the online world.

“I feel like we’ve gotten to this point where doing nothing is not an option,” said Murphy, a Democrat. “And increasingly, when members of Congress go home, this is one of the first or second issues they hear from their constituents.”

The legislation introduced by Britt and Murphy, along with Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., aim to ban all children under the age of 13 from using social media and require permission from a guardian for users. under 18 to create an account. While this is one of many proposals in Congress that seek to make the internet safer for children and teenagers, the four senators said in a joint interview with The Associated Press that they believe they representative of the millions of American parents who are deeply concerned that Social media companies are largely unregulated what they can serve their children.

“The idea that an algorithm has some kind of First Amendment right to get into your child’s brain is not good,” said Schatz, who initially led the bipartisan group of four. “And the idea that a 13-year-old has some First Amendment right to have an algorithm shove offensive content down their throat is also absurd.”

Along with age restrictions, the legislation will prohibit social media companies from using algorithms to recommend content to users under 18. Companies will also have to test and verify the age of users , based on the latest technology.

The bipartisan bill comes at a time when there is a growing appetite in Congress for regulating social media companies — and as the companies have for years avoided stricter regulation in Washington. Some states like Utah and Arkansas made their own laws, creating a greater challenge at the federal level.

This time, the four senators said they believe there is a unique bipartisan momentum around the issue as parents battle to make progress. post-pandemic mental health crisis among the youth. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, show that 60% of teenage girls report feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness, and 30% say they are seriously considering the suicide attempt.

“This is an issue that unites parents across the country, regardless of their political views on other matters,” Cotton said.

However, any law that proposes to regulate technology and social media companies faces major challenges, and not just because of the companies’ deep pockets. While the The European Union enforces very strict privacy and safety protections online, Congress has so far been unable to agree on a way to regulate the behemoth industry. The previous law failed amid disagreements over excessive regulation and civil liberties.

And despite widespread bipartisan interest in taking action, it remains to be seen whether any legislation can successfully move through the Democratic-majority Senate and Republican-controlled House. The two parties have different and sometimes conflicting priorities on what to do about tech companies.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that “I believe we need some kind of child protections” online, but did not specify legislation.

A separate bill on child safety by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., were approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last year. This requires a different approach, requiring social media companies to follow a “duty of care” to make their platforms safer and more transparent by design. That bill, which was reintroduced by the two this week, would force companies to give minors the option to disable addictive product features and algorithms and enable safety settings to child by default.

Another bill introduced on Wednesday by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., would expand child privacy protections online, prohibiting companies from collecting personal data from young teens and prohibiting targeted advertising to children and adolescents. teenager Republicans and Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, too, are working on a broader online privacy bill that would give adults as well as children more control over their data.

Other fees may apply aim to ban TikTok or give the government more leeway to review foreign-owned platforms deemed a potential security threat.

Industry groups have criticized the child safety bills, warning of overreach. They say the rules can backfire and prevent some teens from seeking out helpful resources for suicide or LBGTQ+ issues, in particular.

“Being a parent in the 21st century is hard, but putting the government between parents and their teenagers is the wrong approach,” said Carl Szabo of NetChoice, an advocacy group that -count on Meta, TikTok, Google and Amazon among its members.

Another industry-aligned group, the Chamber of Progress, says that algorithmically targeted content bans will actually make it harder for teens to find age-appropriate material. “We need to listen to teenagers, who say that social media often plays a positive role in their lives,” said CEO Adam Kovacevich.

Blumenthal also criticized the bill among four senators, saying this week that he had “strong concerns” that the legislation would place more of a burden on parents than on tech companies and could will give the industry a chance to collect more data as parents try to verify their children’s age.

“Our bill in effect puts the burden on big technology” rather than parents, Blumenthal said of his Blackburn legislation.

Schatz defended their law as “elegant in its simplicity.”

“We’re just saying that kids 12 and under shouldn’t be on a social media platform,” Schatz said. “That’s a policy call. That’s up to Congress. And I think most people agree with us.”

Cotton said most social media companies already collect children’s data, and that their fees do not pose an additional risk. The fact that there are so many bills out there, he said, highlights “a lot of energy and enthusiasm about putting some reasonable guardrails around social media.”

Many teens also want regulation, Murphy said.

“When I talk to the children who go around my house, they know that they are not protected and taken care of,” he said. “They know that sometimes these sites send them to places they shouldn’t.”

Britt said some of her friends and fellow parents in her walking group texted her news about her bill after they introduced it.

“This is what we need,” they told him.



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