Contact:
David Monahan, Fairplay, [email protected]
Advocates applaud call for digital reforms to protect kids in tonight’s State of the Union
BOSTON – Tuesday, March 1, 2022 – In response to the growing mental health crisis among children and teens, President Biden will call for a number of landmark digital reforms in his State of the Union address tonight. Among the measures called for by the president are a ban on targeted advertising for children online, “safety by design” standards for digital platforms and services, and efforts to curb algorithmic discrimination faced by young people online.
The Biden-Harris administration’s measures align with the demands of the Designed with Kids in Mind coalition, a group of prominent health, tech, and child advocacy organizations promoting the adoption of a US design code to create a healthier media environment for young people. Below are quotes from Designed with Kids in Mind coalition members in response to President Biden’s historic announcement:
Josh Golin, executive director, Fairplay:
This is a watershed moment for families, children, and all those working to create a healthier media environment for young people in the United States. We applaud the president for rightfully condemning Big Tech for its harms to children, and for calling for the most important and effective solutions: banning surveillance advertising for young people, implementing a safety by design approach that prioritizes children’s wellbeing over corporate profits, and banning discriminatory algorithms. We look forward to working with the White House, Congress, and our allies to create the internet that our children deserve.
Nicole Gill, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Accountable Tech:
The stresses and strains of growing up in a society saturated by social media platforms have led to alarming declines in young Americans’ mental health and emotional well-being. These empirical trends have been accelerated by a pandemic that has separated children and teenagers from their friends, classmates, teammates and mentors. We applaud President Biden for recognizing what the Big Tech CEOs willfully deny, that their products and platforms play an important role in defining the future of this country. The White House’s support for reforms like strengthening children’s privacy, banning surveillance advertising for children and young people online, and demanding algorithmic transparency and research access demonstrates the time is now to rein in Big Tech and hold these companies accountable for their role in the decline of young people’s mental health.
Katharina Kopp, Ph.D., Policy Director, Center for Digital Democracy:
Children and teens need to be protected from surveillance advertising that identifies, tracks, profiles, and discriminates against them continuously. Digital marketers employ stealthy “Big Data” tactics to manipulate young people, while also gathering their information gleaned from mobile phones, gaming platforms, and social media. The Center for Digital Democracy supports calls for Congress to enact legislation that guards the privacy of youth, bans surveillance advertising, institutes online safety by design, stops online discrimination, and invests in research to serve the best interest of children and teens.
Randy Fernando, Executive Director, Center for Humane Technology:
Our technology must support the minds of young people, and of everyone else, rather than competing to extract their attention and accelerating addiction, cyberbullying, and too many other harms that parents know all too well.
Bethany Robertson, co-director, ParentsTogether:
President Biden is right to name and lay out a platform to address the dire national youth mental health crisis. A significant and growing body of research shows “almost constant” social media use significantly harms kids’ mental health in a number of ways, including increasing depression and anxiety, lowering self-esteem and body image, and triggering addictive behaviors – resulting in mental and emotional harm, and even death. This crisis is being driven by social media companies’ dangerous-by-design features, rooted in profit above kids’ safety. We urge social media companies and Congress to take quick, decisive action to protect kids and embrace a kid-friendly US Design Code.
Julia Hoppock, Partnerships Director, The Social Dilemma, Exposure Labs:
In his State of the Union address, President Biden highlighted a problem that we hear from so many young people directly. The business model of Big Social is not built for us, it is built to exploit us. By committing to increasing protections for kids online, we’re one step closer to building the online world that we all deserve.
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