President Biden laid out his case during his first State of the Union address last night for tackling growing concerns over social media-induced mental health issues, particularly among children and teens. “We must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit,” Biden declared. “It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children, demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children.”
Increased Big Tech oversight is one of the few remaining areas that seems to draw at least some bipartisan support, for a number of reasons. The “Someone Please Think of the Children!” refrain is always an easy cause to get behind for politicians — and, in this case, it’s more than likely warranted. One of Biden’s SOTU special invites last night was former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, who made headlines late last year thanks to her congressional testimony on the many, many issues within the company, including its propensity to downplay internal studies showing its products exacerbated teens’ mental health struggles.
