Big Tech could be fighting a losing battle with a bipartsan movement in Congress for new regulations on social media use by children, including getting kids off such platforms entirely.
The Senate Commerce Committee this week approved two bills, the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (CTOPPA), sending them along to the full Senate for a vote,
While the industry group Computer and Communications Industry Association said the bills “raise serious First Amendment concerns, would lead to broad restrictions of online speech, contain vague knowledge standards and would create confusing compliance problems for businesses’ efforts to protect young people online,” the vote to favorably report the bills to the full Senate was unanimous.
Big Tech has plenty of lobbying muscle, though. The Kids Online Safety Act passed unanimously out of the committee a year ago this month, but failed to make it into law. The bills are tied to concerns about teen depression, suicide and exploitation that many legislators lay at the feet of Big Tech's business model for attracting and keeping eyeballs on their sites.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), ranking member of the committee, said he thought both bills needed work before they got to the floor, including adding a provision to preempt state laws on child online protection that conflict with the bills. Support for both measures, though, brought together political opposites like Cruz and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in support of new online regulations.
CTOPPA would extend limits on the collection, use and disclosure of information about children and teens online, including for marketing purposes, to teens 17 and under.
Among other things, KOSA makes social media platforms responsible for preventing or mitigating harm to minors such as “the promotion of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol).”
The measure would also give parents new tools to identify harmful behaviors and report potential harms to the social media platforms.
KOSA could have been even tougher. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said social media companies were trying to keep kids on their sites by making them anxious, suicidal and homicidal, with “catastrophic reulsts.”
Schatz had planned to amend the bill with his bipartisan legislation, the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, which would protect kids by getting them off social media. The bill would prohibit those kids from accessing any social media platforms, including by raising verification standards. It would also require parents' OK for social media use by teens, and ban algorithmic boosting (what Schatz called the euphemistic "personalized recommendations") targeting any user under 18.
Schatz agreed to withdraw that bill, but only on the assurance he would get a separate markup in the fall. Sen. Cruz said he was anxious to work with Schatz on the bill.
If that were enough, the strange political union of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have teamed up on the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act, which would create a new federal commission to oversee “major” U.S. tech companies.
The commission would have the authority to “investigate and prosecute misconduct by major technology companies when it comes to violating Americans’ personal data, privacy and online activity,” according to Graham's office.
CCIA criticized that bill as layering on more bureacracy atop the already extensive list of government agencies regulating the tech sector. That list includes the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, Federal Communication Commission, Depart of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Transportation and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
“Building more bureaucracy won't help the U.S. win the global innovation race against adversaries abroad,” CCIA president and CEO Matt Schruers said.
