A bill worth liking
Abig and bipartisan bill to protect young people from the harms of social media platforms is getting closer to passing the U.S. Senate. This is good news. If and when the Kids Online Safety Act moves over to the House, some version of it should pass — and then a consensus bill should move to President Biden’s desk.
The questions that swirl around precisely how much the likes of TikTok, Instagram, Snap and YouTube drive kids into depression are far from settled. Even the definitions of what constitutes a social media platform are somewhat up in the air. And KOSA, as it’s called, is far from a perfect attempt to regulate companies that are, importantly, in the business of facilitating free expression.
But a nation in the throes of a teenage mental health crisis doesn’t need to wait for absolutely definitive research linking social media to depression and suicide — or for the perfect bill to arrive — to take some strong action to empower young people and their parents.
This bill would require the social media behemoths to “exercise reasonable care” and rethink design features — like “infinite scroll” or rewards for staying online — that could harm young people’s mental health by exposing them to sexual exploitation, harassment and other risks.
It would require that they by default set the most protective safety and privacy settings for younger users, while giving parents more ability to adjust their kids’ settings and see how much time their kids are online.
It would also make companies make it easier for minors to delete their accounts and give parents and educators an easier way to report suspected harm to the companies.
The latest version of the legislation reflects significant changes made in response to protests from some human rights and LGBTQ groups, who have since dropped their opposition. Rather than vesting key enforcement power with state attorneys general, who many understandably feared would pursue political agendas, it now vests most authority with the Federal Trade Commission, and narrows causes for A government action. dd up all the measures, and they’re salutary at a time when American teenagers and parents feel at the mercy of manipulative, sophisticated digital forces beyond their control.
The bill doesn’t do everything, and like others, we worry that some of its definitions remain broad enough to lead to the blocking of important, constitutionally protected speech. Teens should still be able to search and learn about the world, to find communities and to engage in almost all types of speech. We’d welcome refinements to protect youngsters from corporate and personal predation, not to stop them from affirmatively seeking things out.
But this is still solid legislation that tries to add some guardrails to a now unregulated, unpoliced highway full of bad drivers on which young people are speeding, often without seatbelts.
With teen girls reporting record levels of persistent sadness and suicide rates among adolescents stunningly high, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to err on the side of overprotectiveness. If the bill becomes a law and parts of it fail court challenges on First Amendment grounds, that’s a small price to pay for millions of young people likelier to have a chance to live healthier lives.