Many policymakers at both the state and federal levels have called for additional regulations to protect children’s online privacy and improve online safety. While the desire to protect children is a well-intentioned motivation, these proposals have significant consequences, and in many cases may even diminish children’s online privacy. In a new policy brief out today, I discuss the potential impact of these proposals for all internet users, not just children.
In general, these proposed online safety regulations tend to fall into three major categories:
- A total or near total ban of social media use by users under a certain age;
- Requirements for age verification and age-appropriate design for social media and other general use websites;
- Additional age verification and age-appropriate design codes for particular types of content.
A ban or near total ban of social media use is a draconian step for a government to take. It eliminates speech opportunities for individuals of every age.
Such an approach assumes all uses of social media are bad and neglects the beneficial communities that have formed. It discounts the ways social media can serve as a form of communication with far away friends and family members. Additionally, many proposals struggle to define social media in ways that would not include a whole range of websites such as Wikipedia and review sites like Yelp.
Age-appropriate design codes first gained momentum in Europe and the United Kingdom, but last year California enacted the first such proposal in the United States. To comply with such requirements (including a total ban of under aged users), platforms will have to collect more information and often more sensitive information. This includes, for example, government IDs to verify a user’s identity and age instead of merely asking for a birthdate. Other websites may choose to comply by treating every user as if they are underage and limiting access to information on important topics deemed inappropriate, like politics or sexual health.
Finally, some laws have taken a more targeted approach to create these requirements for a certain group websites such as those that have a certain percentage of pornographic content. These laws still raise questions about the difficulty of their enforcement and could also create additional security risk for adult users.
Parents are typically in the best position to address concerns about their child’s use of social media. Actions by policymakers could limit the ways in which they teach their children to use technology or create a false sense of security when they let their children online. There is no one size fits all solution for balancing the risks and benefits of social media use by teenagers, and each family will make different choices about what content and amount of time is appropriate for each child. Today’s policy proposals around children’s online safety may be well intentioned, but their consequences will both fail to resolve concerns and create further problems.
