A bipartisan U.S. Senate bill, the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, would prohibit children under the age of 13 from using social media and require parental consent for teens between 13 and 17 to use it.
Matt Schruers, the president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), said while the group believes it is important to keep young social media users safe, it feels that this bill is not the best path to do so.
"We support lawmakers’ attention to this important issue and appreciate the importance of parents and younger users jointly deciding what is appropriate use of online services. Keeping young users safe online is a broadly shared goal, but this legislation could potentially hinder access to valuable resources, supportive communities and important youth-led activism on social media," Schruers said in a news release. "Mandates to verify user age without any basic certainty on what meets this requirement may result in depriving users of economically and socially valuable products."
Age verification technology "does not currently have effective measures to test age without more invasive data collecting mechanisms," Schruers said. "These rules will result in compliance systems that retain even more new data on young people and adults, whenever a person signs up for a service. We look forward to working with the committee on compliance issues so that companies don’t need to overly censor or collect verification data to avoid liability.”
U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Katie Britt (R-AL) introduced the bill in April, with the intention of guarding children against harmful effects of social media, according to a news release from Schatz. In addition to implementing age restrictions, the legislation would prohibit social media companies from targeting users under 18 with algorithmically curated content.
“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. This needs to stop,” Schatz said. “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.”
Cotton addressed the need to protect kids from online predators.
“From bullying and sex trafficking to addiction and explicit content, social media companies subject children and teens to a wide variety of content that can hurt them, emotionally and physically," Cotton said in a statement. "Just as parents safeguard their kids from threats in the real world, they need the opportunity to protect their children online. By setting an age limit of 13—and requiring parental consent until age 18—our bill will put parents back in control of what their kids experience online.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics reported that in 2021, 62% of teens between 13 and 18, as well as 18% of children between 8 and 12, used social media every day. The report said that through social media, adolescents can be exposed to violent, inaccurate or dangerous content.
The CCIA said it opposes the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, because the bill would limit the ability of young people and marginalized groups to utilize those platforms to "organize" and "speak out."
