(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Four senators introduced the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act on Wednesday, which, if passed, would ban minors under the age of 13 from accessing social media and require parental consent for kids under 18.
Senators Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, Tom Cotton, R-Ark, Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., all sponsored the bill, which would also prohibit algorithmic recommendations for minors to reduce social media addiction.
According to the Daily Wire, the act would require companies to “take reasonable steps beyond merely requiring attestation, taking into account age verification technologies, to verify the age of individuals who are account holders.”
Verification technology and hard copies of documentation would likely be necessary to confirm the minor’s age, along with parent’s explicit consent for them to use the platform.
“The growing evidence is clear: social media is making kids more depressed and wreaking havoc on their mental health. While kids are suffering, social media companies are profiting,” Schatz said in a statement. “Our bill will help us stop the growing social media health crisis among kids by setting a minimum age and preventing companies from using algorithms to automatically feed them addictive content based on their personal information.”
Attempts to ban video platform TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, continue to make their way through Congress.
The app, often called “digital fentanyl” by lawmakers trying to ban or limit the platform, is the most widely used among minors. A recent study revealed that children and teenagers spent an average of 99 minutes on the application per day in 2021. Companies such as YouTube and Facebook tried to implement vertical video streaming components to their platforms in order to compete.
“There is no doubt that our country is facing a growing mental health crisis and a deteriorating culture of violence. Children and teenagers across our nation are dying, families are being devastated and our society is withering,” Britt added in the statement. “The only beneficiaries of the status quo are social media companies’ bottom lines and the foreign adversaries cheering them on.”
The TikTok ban drew bipartisan criticism as a sequel to the Patriot Act. Lawmakers appear to be trying to find a middle ground for the sake of children addicted to social media and national security.
“I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact the commonsense, age-appropriate solutions needed to tackle this generational challenge,” Britt said.
