Schatz Announces Updates To Legislation To Keep Kids Healthy, Safe Online

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) today announced updates to his bill to protect kids from the harmful impacts of social media. In a speech on the Senate floor, Schatz discussed his Healthy Kids Act which would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media platforms and prevent social media companies from algorithmically targeting content to users under the age of 17. The updated legislation follows extensive consultation with advocates and stakeholders, as well as Senate and Commerce Committee leadership, since Schatz first introduced legislation to protect kids online last spring.

“Delaying the onset of social media use is a straightforward and common-sense way to protect our youngest kids from the very worst of the internet’s ills,” said Senator Schatz, a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. “And once kids are on social media, at 13 or 14 or whenever, they need protection, particularly from algorithmic targeting. Just last year alone, social media companies made $11 billion from ads targeted at kids under 18 in the United States. So it’s no wonder that they have no appetite to change their business model without a federal law. It’s working great for them, just not for the millions of young kids who are sad and lonely and angry because of it.”

Senator Schatz continued, “I’m glad we’re seeing renewed momentum and urgency right now with a number of different proposals on this issue in the Senate. All of them, my bill included, share the same goal of keeping our kids healthy. But at the heart of this effort is the essential question of when kids ought to be on social media. At what age is it appropriate to use? If we’re going to protect these kids online – and act as a counterweight to the rich and powerful tech companies – answering that question and establishing an age minimum is essential. That’s what the Healthy Kids Act does.”

The full text of Senator Schatz’s remarks can be found below. Video is available here.

Tens of millions of kids in America are anxious, depressed, angry, lonely, sedentary, sometimes insecure, sometimes suicidal. And just about everybody, whether they're parents or teachers or mental health professionals or even the kids themselves, points the finger at the same culprit: social media.

We do not need more data to tell us what is so painfully obvious in schools and homes across the country. Social media platforms, with their wildly powerful, covert, and addictive algorithms, are driving our kids deeper and deeper into a sea of despair that they can't find their way out of. Kids are being unwittingly sucked into rabbit holes that leave them in a constant state of panic and outrage, ashamed of their own bodies, lacking meaningful friendships and connections.

The idea that a young kid – a kid – can feel so unhappy and so unfulfilled at the tender age of eight or nine, so much so that they seriously contemplate self-harm, is appalling. And it is a uniquely modern crisis created over the past decades by profit-chasing tech companies for whom nothing and no one is off limits. Not even very young kids. The math for them is very simple. Attention means money, and the best way to hold people's attention is to make them upset and keep them upset.

You talk to any parent – whether they're raising a toddler or a teenager, whether they're a voter or a nonvoter, a Democrat or Republican – they are worried and they are frustrated about all the ways that social media is harming kids. But they don't know what to do about it. Or if they can do anything at all. Some might work two jobs and not have the time to monitor what their kids are up to online. Others might lack the technical literacy to operate parental controls and set limits on screen time. All they really want is for their young kids to be off social media altogether.

Because there is no good reason that a nine-year-old should be spending hours every day scrolling through TikTok that's been programed with no concern for whether the content is age appropriate or not. There is no First Amendment right for an 11-year-old to be on Instagram, while an algorithm targets them with content glorifying starvation and fueling insecurities.

By the companies’ own admission, social media was never meant to be used by young kids. Yet any parent, or anyone who knows a parent, knows that young kids are on these platforms anyway. And the only way that it will stop is if the federal law finally mandates that companies keep young kids off of their services.

Over the past year, my team and I have worked extensively with a broad range of advocates and stakeholders, as well as the Senate Commerce Committee leadership, to update my bill to protect kids on social media. Our updated bill, called the Healthy Kids Act, would do two simple things. It would prevent kids under 13 from being on social media at all, and it would ban algorithmic targeting on these platforms for kids under 17. Delaying the onset of social media use is a straightforward and commonsense way to protect our youngest kids from the very worst of the internet's ills. To let them have a normal childhood in the real world. Play a sport, learn an instrument, read a book, go to the park, walk around with friends.

And once kids are on social media at 13 or 14 or whenever, they need protection, particularly from the algorithmic targeting. Just last year alone, social media companies made $11 billion from ads targeted at kids under 18 in the United States. $11 billion. So it's no wonder that they have no appetite to change their business model without a federal law. It's working great for them, just not for the millions of young kids who are sad and lonely and angry because of it.

Kids need help, and they need protection. And because the companies have shown time and time again that they will not step up, Congress must. I'm glad that we're seeing renewed momentum and urgency right now with a number of different proposals on this issue in the United States Senate. All of them, my bill included, share the same goal of keeping our kids healthy. But at the heart of this effort is an essential question of when our kids ought to be allowed to be on social media. At what age is it appropriate to use? If we're going to protect these kids online and act as a counterweight to the rich and powerful tech companies, answering that question and establishing an age minimum is essential. And that is what the Healthy Kids Act does.

It is our job here in the Senate to consider any number of difficult challenges facing the country and the world and to debate what to do about them. But what is more fundamental to the role of the federal government than to protect the most vulnerable Americans, especially our children?

If you think what's happening to kids online is unclear, look at the data. The percentage of high school students surveyed who experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year [rose] from 36% to 57% for females, 21% to 29% in ten years. In ten years. It might be the phones. You can consult the data. You can ask the Surgeon General of the United States. You can ask all of the people who have studied this, and they know it is early use of social media.

Look, we all use social media, and our adult brains are not powerful enough to overcome the negative impacts. You're thirteen, you're nine, you're seven. You are going to be overpowered by these algorithms. We have to protect these kids. And if you don't believe the data, talk to any parent – Democrat or Republican, parent of a two-year-old parent of a 12-year-old. Everybody wants this tool in their tool kit. And the idea that we should pass a federal law mandating that all the social media companies have to do is have a little thing in settings where you can turn the dials on all the different aspects of your social media account is ignorant. It is ignorant. The idea that all we really need to do is precipitate a conversation between a parent and a child about social media use. No. What parents need is to be able to say, “I'm sorry, that's illegal. I'm sorry. You may not use these social media platforms.”

And I think it gets really tricky and really complicated once a kid is 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. I understand that. And we've narrowed the bill to be more precise. Because there is no First Amendment right, there is no public policy upside for a nine-year-old to be on TikTok. Nobody can make that argument with a straight face. And so as we consider our options going forward on tech policy, but specifically protecting children online, the threshold question is at what age is it appropriate for a child to use social media? If I had my druthers, I would have set it at 16, honestly. But certainly we can all agree that there is no advantage to a child's life, a prepubescent child's life, a nine-year-old, a four-year-old, an 11-year-old being on social media.

I am confident we will get this done. I'm confident that if this ever received a Senate floor vote, that it would be a resounding bipartisan majority. And I'm confident that the American people support us in this.

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