In nearly every congress hearing on big tech, be it on privacy, monopoly, or in the case of last week’s TikTok hearing on national security, at least one lawmaker is seen to be concerned about something along with the lines of “But think of the kids!”
In a recent hearing, a number of officials, including New Jersey Democrat Frank Melone, cited studies demonstrating that TikTok disseminates offensive material for children and teenagers. The site sends content about self-harm and eating disorders to children and young people every 2.6 minutes, or every eight minutes, according to a new study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The concern is furthered by the fact that TikTok is a popular platform choice among young users. According to a 2022 Pew Research Survey, the app was utilized by 67 percent of the teens polled, followed by YouTube.
Callum Hood, research director at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said in a press statement “Without legally mandated security through design, transparency, and accountability, the algorithm will continue to put vulnerable users at risk.”
Although, Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok noted that these are the issues that almost all major social media platforms have faced in recent years. These concerns are echoes of complaints that Meta has made in the past, particularly in connection to Instagram.
When it comes to commenting on how harmful could a platform be to children, it often seems more of an attention-seeking tactic, highlighting some of the most common worries that American parents have. What kind of monster would not want to ensure that children are protected from exploitation and hazardous content? The attention paid to young users also presents one of the few open doors for bipartisan collaboration.
But only a day before Chew was scheduled to testify before Congress, another gunshot forced students at Denver East High School to flee their classrooms. A pandemic-era program that provided free school meals to all children was phased away earlier this year in favor of a system based on income, which will put more obstacles in the way of the kids who need it the most. Due in large part to entrenched problems with economic inequality and a deteriorating social safety net, about one-third of children in the US live in poverty.
Children are impacted by things like a lack of gun safety regulations and a lack of funding for social or educational initiatives, but these concerns frequently result in impasses in legislative and policymaking processes. Moreover, pleading with lawmakers to "think about the children" rarely has an impact. When it comes to Big Tech, the focus on "the kids" frequently oversimplifies and diverts attention from the more delicate issues of privacy, widespread data collection, the outsized power of certain companies to dominate smaller competitors, and the transnational nature of extremist content and misinformation. Instead, we need to ask deeper questions: How long should companies be able to keep data? What should it be used for? Can private companies that want to educate the next generation of consumers ever be incentivized to set time limits or restrict access to content for young users? Overall, how do our systems allow damage?
There are certain ways that would get the concerns regarding children's well-being to light, practically protecting them. Although, it is rare to find favor in Congress. While officials may express concerns about how TikTok in the US differs from its Chinese counterpart, Douyin, in terms of the experience for young users, little has changed in legislation to address the online harms experienced by US children in the five years since the Tide Pod challenge or even the 18 months since Frances Haugen first testified before Congress, despite her frequent appearances on television hearings.
In regard to these cases, Senators Edward J. Markey and Bill Cassidy are proposing a bipartisan bill for 2021 that would prohibit internet companies from gathering user data from users between the ages of 13 and 15 and establish a juvenile marketing and privacy branch at the Federal Trade Commission. However, the bill is yet to be voted on in the Senate.
