Young People Lobby Congress for More Online Protections

WASHINGTON — Youth advocates made their presence felt on Capitol Hill this week, planting signs on the west lawn of the Capitol and visiting lawmakers, in pursuit of greater social media protections for youth. 

Design It For Us, a coalition of youth-led organizations that advocates for online protection for youth and young adults, created its installation of white yard signs to call for the passage of the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act. 

“It’s been really positive just to have a seat at the table,” Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of Design It For Us, said. “This is an issue that affects all of us, and the legislation would affect us and our generation.”

The group has a small team meeting with legislators this week to share stories and advocate for privacy reforms.

The recent buzz around AI has also contributed to their conversations. 

AI has started to integrate into social media through platforms like Snapchat with the “My AI” feature and Facebook’s “Llama 2” AI model. 

“I think AI is a priority that’s top-of-mind right now,” Qureshi said. 

“I think the bottom line is that we’re going to have to think about how we regulate AI at the same time as social media,” he added. “We’re of the opinion that regulating social media will create a baseline for AI regulation.” 

Emma Lembke, co-chair of Design It For Us and founder of LOG OFF, also emphasized the importance of bringing AI into the conversation. 

“AI and social media regulations can go hand-in-hand, and we really do believe that protecting kids online is a necessary action now to ensure that young people are protected, that the next generation has safeguards that our generation, Gen Z, did not have,” Lembke said.

Interest in social media protections for minors is also gaining traction on Capitol Hill because of an advisory issued by the surgeon general in May. 

The Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health encourages policymakers, parents and online companies to implement healthy practices for youth mental health online. 

The advisory pointed to social media as potentially causing harm to adolescents, sharing that studies have found “a relationship between social media use and poor sleep quality, reduced sleep duration, sleep difficulties and depression among youth.”

To combat these negative impacts, Design It For Us is focusing its efforts on the Kids Online Safety Act, which expands the rights and protections for minors on social media platforms. It allows users to “disable addictive product features and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations.” 

The bill would also hold the platforms accountable for mitigating danger to minors by restricting explicit or harmful content. 

The Kids Online Safety Act has bipartisan support, with 22 Republicans and 17 Democrats sponsoring the bill. 

“It really does show that this is an issue that diffuses across party lines,” Lembke commented.

The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act is the other legislation of focus. The law was originally passed in 1998, but is back in Congress for 21st-century revisions. 

Coined COPPA 2.0, the bill would increase the age limit for protections to 16 years of age and limit companies’ usage of minors’ personal information. 

A third bill the group is urging Congress to pass is the Kids PRIVACY Act, which would further expand privacy protections for children and teenagers as well as directives to operators to make the best interests of children and teenagers a primary design consideration.

All three bills are currently in the Senate.

Design It For Us met with Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Reps. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., this week, along with other senior staff.

Following their conversation on Tuesday, Durbin tweeted a thank you to the group, saying they are “inspiring” in their efforts to take action to “protect their generation from the harms of social media.”

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