Biden wants Congress to reduce the risks of social media for children

In his 2022 State of the Union address, President Biden warned of the harms of social media to young people and called for new privacy protections for children online.

“We must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they are conducting for profit on our children,” Mr. Biden said.

The president made similar comments last year in his State of the Union address, urging Congress to impose restrictions on social media services like TikTok and Instagram.

“It’s time to pass bipartisan legislation that would stop Big Tech from collecting personal information about children and teens online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal information these companies collect about us everyone gather.” Mr. Biden said at the time.

Tonight, the president will likely again call for new curbs on social media. What’s different this year is that a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers is moving closer to passing new social media rules.

A bill called the Children’s Online Safety Act has gained popularity among both Democrats and Republicans. The measure would cover social media and video game platforms with certain design features, such as endless news feeds and personalized content recommendation systems.

It would require these online services to enable the highest privacy settings for minors by default. It would allow young people to opt out of personalized recommendation algorithms. And it would impose a “duty of care” on many social media and video game platforms to prevent harm to minors – including depression, eating disorders, violence, sexual exploitation and predatory marketing.

Introduced by Senators Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, the online safety bill now has more than 60 cosponsors, more than enough support to pass. The measure has also been endorsed by health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association. No vote has yet been scheduled in the Senate.

However, even if the bill passes the Senate, it faces an uphill battle.

Civil liberties groups and tech industry trade associations have raised concerns about the First Amendment measure, warning that the bill’s “duty of care” provision could lead to social media platforms blocking information about important issues like eating disorders , gender identity and reproductive health. That would make it harder for young people to find crucial news, resources and communities, critics say.