Congress About to Approve ‘Kids Online Safety Act’
Written by Chriss W. Street
Chris Griswold at American Compass highlights that the U.S. Senate approval of the ‘Kids Online Safety Act’ by a bipartisan 91-3 vote this week, means the first major internet bill meant to protect children will now move forward to probable passage in the U.S. House of Representative, and then signature into law by the President (whoever).
The legislation is the product of a unique bipartisan effort between Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to hold Big Tech accountable through numerous hearings to expose the dark side of social media that preys on immature minds.
Silicon Valley Tech CEOs dutifully showed for Congressional hearings during the 2020 presidential election cycle to profess their industrywide commitment for new initiatives to better protect children from pedophiles, child traffickers and self-harm.
But Open Secrets reported that Big Tech while in Washington DC, also backed-up the truck for sitting members of Congress with contributions of $21 million from Alphabet (Google); $12.7 million from Microsoft; $9.4 million from Amazon; $6.6 million from Facebook; and $6 million from Apple.
Democrats got the majority of Big Tech corporate contributions, with the exception of Microsoft. The Biden campaign was the top recipient, with Democrat’s Georgia Senators Ossoff and Warnock ranking in the top 10. Microsoft’s top recipient was the Senate Majority PAC run by Senate leader Chuck Schumer. Democratic National Committee also ranked in the top three recipients for all of the companies.
Griswold points out that the risks for children in the last four years have skyrocketed because: “seven out of ten American teens are on Instagram, and almost half are “almost constantly” online. Despite laws that supposedly restrict social media use by kids under 13, almost 40% of kids under that age use Instagram every day.”
Social Media innovations have vastly expanded the opportunity to monetize children, and the companies went all-in “luring children onto social media—and keeping them there—is a top priority for online platforms. This is because, like all social media users, children are not so much the customer as they are the labor. The platforms induce them to produce the content that engages other children.”
The platforms then sell access to these captured minds to advertisers that are projected to book $667 billion of global digital advertising revenues in 2024, with $298.4 billion coming from the United States.
Meta (Facebook) global spokesperson Dani Lever brazenly commented: “We have no commercial or moral incentive to do anything other than give the maximum number of people as much of a positive experience as possible.” As leaked from Facebook in 2021: “Our ultimate goal is messaging primacy with U.S. tweens [i.e., ages 10-12], which may also lead to winning with teens.”