Correspondence- Non-Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

exploitative platforms where their friends are, or expect overworked parents to navigate confusing settings across multiple platforms and monitor every moment their kids are online. The last time Congress passed a law to protect children online was 25 years ago. The digital landscape has changed dramatically, in many unforeseen ways, since the passage of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act in 1998 when smart phones, YouTube, social media, multiplayer gaming with voice chat, and virtual reality didn't even exist. In addition, COPPA only covers children until they turn 13 and has failed to effectively keep kids ages 12 and under off of platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, leaving significant demographics vulnerable to exploitation and harm. Congress's continued inaction has emboldened Big Tech to develop an exploitative business model without considering or mitigating its harmful effects on children and teens. Consequently, the social media platforms that define youth culture and norms and shape children's values, behavior, and self-image were developed with little to no thought given to how young people might be negatively affected. We cannot expect a 25-year-old framework to adequately protect children from today's sophisticated persuasive technologies powered by big data and machine learning or in the rapidly developing metaverse. We need new legislation that puts brakes on this harmful business model and curbs dangerous and unfair design practices. At a minimum, such legislation should: 1. Extend privacy protections to teens. Currently, COPPA only covers children until their 13t" birthday. It is critical to limit the collection of adolescents' data, which fuels harmful recommendations and puts young people at risk of privacy harms. 2. Ban targeted advertising to children and teens to protect them from harmful marketing targeted to their vulnerabilities. Surveillance ads not only take advantage of young people's developing capacities and sell them on harmful products, but they also incentivize tech platforms to prioritize engagement over safety. 3. Require tech companies to make the best interests of children and teens a primary consideration in the design and operation of their platforms, including their algorithms. It is important that such liability be broad enough to capture current harmful practices, such as quantified popularity, as well as emerging features and products.The latter is particularly important given the rapid development of metaverse applications targeted to young people.114 Companies should have a duty to prevent and mitigate harms to young people before new features or products are released. 4. Prohibit the use of dark patterns, which are used to undermine young people's autonomy and manipulate them into spending more time or money on a platform. 5. Impose transparency requirements, including access to algorithms, that enable outside researchers to better understand the impacts of social media on young people. We 114 See, e.g,Salvador Rodriguez,Meta Pursues Teen Users as Horizon Metaverse App Struggles to Grow,The Wall Street Journal Feb.B 2023 I��a. . a'.�c�i i- i .1�:a i �:� �c� i�:w i I�orizon-rnetavei,e ag )I1i�a-try_ .................a............../.../..................................................1............................/........................................./.......................................................................................I................................................................................................................................a................I................................................. 2..I2.2:i.::f o i,,:::.:t.�".ei i..:9:1..a.�".::.ii.a.::.o o i i.:.:.ii.a.::.i n.:�..i,:c l�..::.'].:.'1.6..7.^..74.9. . ... Testimony of Josh Galin, Fairplay, February 14, 2023 19