Washington D.C. – U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) yesterday released a statement in reaction to a recent report related to the impacts of social media on youth mental health released by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.
In a statement, the Surgeon General calls social media a “decades-long experiment” on “unknowing participants” and urges policymakers to act now to protect our nation’s youth.
“I am grateful to see this timely and thorough report from Dr. Murthy. Clearly, there is unequivocal, bipartisan support at the highest levels of our medical community and of our federal government for ending the youth mental health crisis in our country. Thankfully, there are tangible solutions, and Congress has both the power and the duty to act with all due haste,” said Senator Britt. “The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act would represent a major step to address the Surgeon General’s recommendations, including developing age-appropriate health and safety standards, requiring a higher standard of data privacy for children, and strengthening and enforcing age minimums. We can and we must put children over the profits of social media companies. I encourage my colleagues to support this bipartisan, commonsense legislation and put parents back in the driver’s seat when it comes to protecting our children.”
Dr. Murthy’s report names technology companies as playing a central role and having a fundamental responsibility in creating safe online environments. The report urges these companies to seriously consider their harmful algorithms and to “avoid design features that attempt to maximize times, attention, and engagement.” In addition to enforcing age minimums, Dr. Murthy also advises social media companies to set the highest levels of safety and privacy default standards for youth who have created accounts on their platforms.
Consistent with the Surgeon General’s report and even going further to address alarming statistics in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act would:
- Require social media companies to undertake rigorous age verification measures based on the latest technology, while prohibiting companies from using age verification information for any other purpose;
- Prohibit children under the age of 13 from using social media, consistent with the current practices of major social media companies;
- Prohibit social media companies from recommending content using algorithms to users under the age of 18;
- Require a guardian’s permission for users under 18 to create an account;
- Create a pilot project for a government-provided age verification system that platforms can choose to use; and
- Provide the FTC and state attorneys general authority to enforce the provisions of the bill.
The full bill text is available here.
