A Senate committee advanced a proposal on party lines Thursday to put responsibilities and restrictions on online companies and platforms that serve kids and teens. Supporters say the standards protect children from the documented harms of social media, while opponents argue the bill will not even have a chance to keep kids safe.
Senate Bill 5708 would require companies that provide online services to provide data and privacy protections to all users under 18 years old. Those protections include not collecting and using a minor’s personal information, not giving them notifications at certain periods of the day and not providing them an “addictive feed” that displays content based on the minor’s information.
Federal law regulates online privacy for children under 13. Recent attempts in Congress to bolster those regulations faltered, and some states have attempted to take the issue into their own hands.
Prime sponsor state Senator Noel Frame, D-Seattle, said her legislation aims to uphold the existing standards for kids under 13 while extending them to those 13 to 17.
“We have all seen the ways that children’s mental health suffers at the expense of the companies that seek to profit off their negative emotions, quite frankly,” she told the Senate Committee on Business, Financial Services and Trade on February 13. “And let’s be honest, it affects all of us too. Any of us that have been on a social media platform knows exactly what we’re talking about with addictive patterns.”
Frame said online platforms need to do more to protect minors from the harms of social media, like those outlined by the U.S. Surgeon General last summer.
On Thursday, all Democrats on the Senate panel voted in favor of moving the bill and its restrictions forward.
