Welcome back to Chester's news wrap Today, lawmakers introduced
a bipartisan bill aiming to give parents more control over
their Children's time on social media. It's called the
Kids Online Safety Act. And it requires companies to
create tools to keep Children safe, limit screen time
and protect their data. Joining me now is Irene
lee policy counsel at common sense media and Irene tell
us more about the measures in the bill, what
it demands from these companies and how it works different
for each platform like Tiktok or instagram. Yeah,
of course. Thank you for having me. Um
So first Cosa um is a bill that imposes a
duty on platforms to be acting in the best interests
of minors by taking steps to prevent or mitigate the
risk of harms posed by the platform. Um This
includes a variety of things. The bill does a
good job of laying them out. So it includes
the promotion of self harm, suicide eating disorders,
substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for
minors. Um It also includes uh predatory, unfair
or deceptive marketing. Um besides from that, it
would also be giving kids and parents more safeguards um
and controls to be better protecting kids and teens online
. So for example, there would be a strong
default privacy settings so that kids would not be sharing
so much data by default. Um It also would
encourage transparency through annual independent audits of systemic risk.
Um it would also be enabling um independent as well
as market researchers platforms so that we can get a
little better understanding of how these platforms are working.
Now Some of the companies have already introduced some features
to try to make folks feel safer and perhaps curate
the feet a little better. Like there's pop ups
that say perhaps you could take a break or they
just change the way that the feed is given to
the users. Those changes don't seem to be enough
, but are they working at least? And this
would obviously be a layer on top of that,
correct? Yes. So these features um do get
a little bit at the problem in terms of trying
to decrease, for example, like take a break
would increase the time you spend on the platform at
the same time, it doesn't go far enough because
it's not addressing the root of the problem. So
in the case of platforms like instagram or Tiktok,
um they're powered by algorithms that are recommending you content
um that can often be harmful, for example,
um you could be looking at a radio that's just
promoting fitness, for example, like how to eat
healthy, how to exercise healthy. And then the
next thing you know, you're taking down a rabbit
hole of content that's like trying to encourage you to
engage in disorder eating or extreme dieting. So features
like take a break when um get you to stop
looking at that kind of harmful content would just decrease
the amount of time you spend on it. Um
and instagram also introduced nudges. So those would nudge
away from the content, but it doesn't address the
fact that these algorithms are amplifying and recommending users that
kind of harmful content in the first place? So
other things that you notice that are not in the
bill that you feel should be in there? Well
, I do think that um this bill is just
trying to approach it from a specific angle which is
finally imposing responsibility on platforms to when they see these
kinds of risks on their platforms to try to take
action to prevent or mitigate them. Um I think
where this bill um would be lacking is in terms
of privacy controls, but I think that's also on
purpose um because there's also proposals to be updating the
Children's online privacy protection act, also known as kappa
um and both the Senate and the House and that
is targeted towards trying to expand protection towards teens data
as well. So those who are 13 to 15
years old. Um another thing that those couple update
bills would be doing is specifically banning behavioral advertising.
Um two kids and teens. So that's those are
the algorithms I'm talking about that are amplifying such harmful
content. Um so this bill doesn't address it,
but there is a reason for it. It's trying
to um do its own part and be a compliment
towards coppa as well as bills that would be banning
these kinds of algorithms towards getting teams. Is there
any kind of repercussions if this bill passes? and
these platforms don't make changes? Can they face fines
? What are some consequences they could face? Yeah
, so the bill gives enforcement power to the Federal
Trade Commission as well as the State Attorney's Office is
um so if this bill were to be passed,
um platforms, if they, for example, knew
that they were promoting harmful content, so like maybe
uh content that pushes you towards disordered eating, then
they would be in violation of the act. And
the Federal Trade Commission could either um bring an investigation
and find you, or a State Attorney's Office could
take it up with that said um one thing that
could strengthen this bill is also um more resources for
the Federal Trade Commission, since typically the Federal Trade
Commission has been understaffed and would need more resources to
really be able to enforce this. Alright, but
what about the argument that it's not just up to
the social media platform to make sure your kids are
looking at the right thing or not on their device
, as long that it's up to the parents to
do something. Where does this come into their into
that argument? Yeah, so I think it's important
to have both, um you like a parent um
should be involved in their kids lives and see what
they're looking at, but at the same time,
um we can't be imposing such a big burden on
parents to be doing it all on theirselves? Um
I think it's, you also have to keep in
mind that parents often didn't grow up with social media
. Um So they don't understand what it's like to
be addicted to social media or really understand how they
work. Um and in general they're also just really
busy and they're probably already overwhelmed with everything else that's
happening. So by only by having either design features
or bills that only require parents to be taking more
of a part in their kids lives in supervising their
content instead of asking these platforms to actually be making
design moves that they can make, that would make
these platforms a safer place. Um I think there's
a part for both of them, like it can't
just be on the parents Irene lee policy counsel at
common sense Media Irene, thank you so much for
sharing your wisdom and the latest on this bill. 00:06:34.680 --> II