According to the , teens and young adults who spend the most time on social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram are anywhere from 13% to 66% more likely to exhibit symptoms of depression.
鈥淚t's hard to know what types of information or even what types of design features cause anxiety or depression or even suicide in some cases,鈥� said Jason Kelley, director of activism at the . The nonprofit is a San Francisco-based group founded by information technology insiders that seeks to educate the government on tech matters, fight what they consider bad tech legislation in court, and generally promote internet civil liberties.
Kelley鈥檚 group is speaking out in response to a bipartisan group of over 60 U.S. Senators, including Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal from 海角换妻, who support the or KOSA. The measure is designed to make the companies behind popular online platforms more liable for design and content features that are thought to have caused harm in people under the age of 17.
While the Senate seems to have the votes to pass KOSA, critics including Kelley from the Electronic Frontier Foundation hope the lawmakers will re-consider.
鈥淲hat we worry about is that the law will require platforms to sort of go out of their way to limit certain types of content just for users who are under 17,鈥� Kelley said. 鈥淥r really, any user who can't prove or doesn't want to prove that they're over 17.鈥�
Kelley said it raises free speech concerns.
鈥淧eople who can enforce it will be able to chill speech that otherwise is entirely legal, and speech that often young people benefit from considerably,鈥� he said.
Central to the KOSA bill is the 鈥淒uty of Care鈥� provision. U.S. Sen. 叠濒耻尘别苍迟丑补濒鈥檚 website defines as a provision that 鈥漴equires social media companies to prevent and mitigate certain harms that they know their platforms and products are causing to young users as a result of their own design choices, such as their recommendation algorithms and addictive product features. The specific covered harms include suicide, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and sexual exploitation.鈥�
Kelley said the vague wording of the provision could lead politically-minded lawmakers to pressure litigation-averse companies to widely eliminate access to content on things like LGBTQ+ issues and Black history.
鈥淪omeone in a particular state might say, you know, 鈥業'm worried that LGBTQ content is going to lead to depression in young people,鈥欌�� Kelley said. 鈥溾�楽o I'm going to sue this platform, so that they can't recommend LGBTQ content to young people.鈥� That means everybody in this country now can't see that if they're under a certain age, or at least that wouldn't be recommended to them.鈥�
叠濒耻尘别苍迟丑补濒鈥檚 the latest version of the KOSA bill has turned the focus of the duty of care provision away from moderating content and more towards adjusting product design features, like notifications and recommendation algorithms. Also, the legislation now gives the Federal Trade Commission as the only entity authorized to enforce duty of care. Previous iterations granted that enforcement power solely to state attorneys general.
鈥淲e're glad that the Attorney General enforcement has been limited in the most recent version of the bill,鈥� Kelley said. 鈥淲e're still worried about what they're able to do because they can still enforce other portions of the bill. And we think they can get around some of those limitations like that. We're also of course worried that the FTC [Federal Trade Commission], maybe when it's appointed by someone like President Trump, could be a pretty dangerous, politically-motivated actor.鈥�
Kelley said he thinks there are two better ways for the federal government to make social media platforms safer for young people. The first way is to limit the ability of social media platforms to collect user data. The second way is to use antitrust laws to foster more competition in the industry.
鈥淭hey've (parents) come to Washington to ask legislators to do something, and that's because they can't ask the platforms to do anything, because they don't have any power,鈥� Kelley said. 鈥淲ith competition, they would have that power.鈥�
Kelley gave an example.
鈥淚f there was a competitor to TikTok that had different choices, or better features, maybe those features involve the kinds of content that young people see, maybe the kinds of content that they can see,鈥� he said. 鈥淢aybe it involves better parental settings.鈥�
One thing Kelley said that the KOSA bill does not directly address is young people can feel from frequent social media use.
鈥淭here's no easy way to legislate that kind of regular exposure,鈥� Kelley said, 鈥渂ecause one person saying that they're in Aspen isn't something that really anyone I think would agree should be removed from people's ability to view.鈥�
