In another shot across the bow at Big Tech, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have teamed up on a new bill to protect children online, citing "Big Tech’s repeated failures to protect children & teens from serious dangers on their platforms."
The Kids Online Safety Act is billed as a comprehensive, bipartisan effort stemming from hearings into social media companies spearheaded by those legislators, who have signaled that Congress would step in to rein in the platforms where it came to protecting children over issues like body image, eating disorders, substance abuse, and suicide in particular and mental health in general.
They said the bill will make social media platforms put children's interests first "by default," requiring independent audits and public scrutiny by academics, as well as allow for disabling "addictive features," and opting out of algorithmic recommendations.
It also creates an affirmative duty for social media platforms "to prevent and mitigate harms to minors."
At a press conference on the bill, Blumenthal painted an unflattering portrait of Big Tech: ""What we’ve heard in these months at our hearings and from direct talks with parents is harrowing, haunting stories of heartbreaking loss, destructive content driven to children, addictive dark places, emotional rabbit holes, all the result of Big Tech driving toxic content at kids using black box algorithms that are little understood by parents or children."
According to the senators, the bill:
1. "Requires that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Platforms would be required to enable the strongest settings by default.
2. "Gives parents new controls to help support their children and identify harmful behaviors, and provides parents and children with a dedicated channel to report harms to kids to the platform.
Also: Blumenthal Says Facebook Weaponizes Childhood Suffering
3. "Creates a responsibility for social media platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, such as promotion of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol).
4. "Requires social media platforms to perform an annual independent audit that assesses the risks to minors, their compliance with this legislation, and whether the platform is taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms.
5. "Provides academic and public interest organizations with access to critical datasets from social media platforms to foster research regarding harms to the safety and well-being of minors."
Blumenthal and Blackburn said the bill was been endorsed by Common Sense Media, the American Psychological Association, the 5Rights Foundation, American Compass, the Internet Accountability Project, American Principles Project, and the Digital Progress Institute. ■
