{"id":1627799,"date":"2022-08-31T07:17:40","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T11:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1627799"},"modified":"2022-08-31T07:17:57","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T11:17:57","slug":"big-tech-is-the-new-big-tobacco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/big-tech-is-the-new-big-tobacco\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Tech Is The New Big Tobacco"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbig-tech-is-the-new-big-tobacco%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1627799&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>When it comes to the harmful effects social media is having on young people, Clare Morell and fellow researchers at the Institute for Family Studies and the Ethics and Public Policy Center see the writing on the wall \u2014 and it\u2019s a devastating story.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we don\u2019t take action soon, I do really think we\u2019re going to see a public mental health crisis among the teens and kids who are growing up on social media today,\u201d says Morell, co-author of the new report,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aei.org\/op-eds\/protecting-teens-from-big-tech-five-policy-ideas-for-states\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cProtecting Teens from Big Tech: Five Policy Ideas for the States.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Increasingly, the data is clear that these social media apps cause anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and suicide, Morell says. \u201cWe\u2019re going to see an epidemic \u2014 and it\u2019s already starting \u2014 of online pornography addiction, and what that means for the future of our country is the destabilization of marriages and families. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s inappropriate to say without taking any action, within a few years, within one generation, we could be headed toward a civilizational crisis, like in Japan, where the birth rate has fallen below replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The authors warn in the report:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>One day, we will look back at social media companies like ByteDance (Tiktok) and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and compare them to tobacco companies like Philip Morris (Marlboro) and R.J. Reynolds (Camel). For a time, Big Tobacco enjoyed immense profits and popularity. But eventually, Big Tobacco\u2019s culpability in causing immense physical harm to Americans \u2014 and in trying to obscure the science regarding that harm \u2014 became known. They were eventually held accountable for their deceptive advertising to children using \u201cJoe Camel.\u201d We are living at a moment when we are just learning of the social and psychological harms of social media, and of Big Tech\u2019s efforts to obscure those harms from the public.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>Federal-Level Failures<\/h2>\n<p>Morell says the new report was prompted not only by the research she and fellow scholars were already doing, but also by \u201ca growing desire by different states and state legislators to do something about this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report points to the federal government\u2019s inaction on the increasingly urgent problem of kids and social media as the impetus for states to take matters into their own hands. The authors write that while national indecency laws have limited harmful content in motion pictures and on television, \u201cFederal law has not focused on the unique disruption to children\u2019s psychological development that social media\u2019s pervasive presence appears to cause.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Child Online Protection Act (COPA)\u00a0of 1998 sought to require age verification for minors visiting sites with obscene content, but after several rounds of litigation, the law never took effect.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998 is, in theory, supposed to allow parents to control the interaction between websites (which now include social media platforms) and children, but due to several loopholes, it fails. \u201cIn fact,\u201d the authors write, \u201cbecause it preempts state torts in the area of children\u2019s online privacy, it is arguably worse than nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996 was also intended to protect children online, but Morell says this code has been \u201call carrot and no stick,\u201d because it \u201cempowers companies to take down lewd content without liability for those decisions, giving them immunity and protection to moderate that type of content \u2014 but there\u2019s no corresponding, legal duty or penalty to\u00a0<em>make<\/em>\u00a0them take it down. They know these types of things are proliferating on their platforms, kids are seeing it, and there is protection if they do decide to be Good Samaritans and remove it, but pornography and obscene content is what\u2019s most sensational and keeps people engaged on these platforms \u2014 it\u2019s how companies sell more ads and make more revenue, so they have no incentive to do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Legislative Solutions<\/h2>\n<p>Morell and her co-authors advocate for Congress updating COPPA and Section 230.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to hold these companies accountable for not removing content that is objectionable,\u201d Morell says. \u201cThe Trump administration said there should be a \u2018Bad Samaritan\u2019 carveout, meaning if you\u2019re a company just allowing criminal content to circulate, then you shouldn\u2019t get the immunity that Section 230 provides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Companies aren\u2019t being held accountable for failing to keep kids off platforms, the authors note. To date, companies have had few incentives to require robust age-verification because they have not been held liable for minors under age 13 being on their platforms. That occurs because\u00a0COPPA\u00a0currently\u00a0only covers platforms that have \u201cactual knowledge\u201d that users are underage. This is one of the highest legal liability standards and almost impossible to prove in a court of law. If Congress changed COPPA\u2019s standard to \u201cconstructive knowledge,\u201d it would help this issue by making platforms responsible for what they \u201cshould know,\u201d given the nature of their business and the information they already collect from their users.<\/p>\n<h2>States Can Require Parents to Be Involved \u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>It is, of course, the parents\u2019 responsibility to oversee their child\u2019s activities, but parents can\u2019t be everywhere all the time and are sometimes just simply unaware of the harmful forces that are influencing their children. What\u2019s more, even some parents who would like to monitor their children\u2019s online interactions more closely are restricted by the cost of privacy control software (which often falls short anyway).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe emphasis [of our proposals] is to empower parents to protect their kids,\u201d Morell says. \u201cCertainly there are uninvolved parents out there, and that\u2019s part of the reason that we propose the solutions that we do. We want to protect\u00a0<em>all<\/em>\u00a0children, whether their parents are taking an active role or not, by requiring parents to be involved. If a child says, \u2018Mom, I need you to put in your information to create this account,\u2019 parents would have to play a part. If companies require a parent on an account with a child, the parent will see friend requests that come in, bad actors, who their kids are interacting with, posts they\u2019re seeing, and so forth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morell and her fellow policy experts list five actions that states can take now while they wait for Congress to enact more rigorous requirements for online companies. They include: mandating robust age-verification measures for social media platforms by requiring a driver\u2019s license, credit card numbers, or another form of identification to create an account; requiring parental consent for minors under 18 to open a social media account; mandating full parental access to minors\u2019 social media accounts; requiring social media companies to shut down access to their platforms for all 13- to 17-year-olds\u2019 accounts during bedtime hours (generally 10:30 p.m. \u2013 6:30 a.m.); and including a private cause of action to enable parents to bring lawsuits on behalf of their children against tech companies for any violation of the law.<\/p>\n<h2>How It Would Work, Practically Speaking<\/h2>\n<p>Morell foresees internet companies\u2019 dislike of \u201cpatchwork state laws\u201d as working to the benefit of parents and children, since altering how they do business in one state would likely spur them to make their policies identical across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Morell adds that the private cause of action clause is key, because, \u201cIf individual parents are empowered to bring a private lawsuit against these tech companies for violating the law, that could be very costly to their business, and they would take that seriously. [Private cause of action suits] are one of the most effective means of enforcing laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morell says the proposed state laws are \u201cnovel\u201d and have been created by taking different legal precedents used in other settings and applying them to protecting kids online. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texaspolicy.com\/why-texas-should-ban-social-media-for-minors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Texas Public Policy Foundation also recently called for banning social media for minors.<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As parents wait for lawmakers to hold tech companies accountable for profiting off the vulnerable minds of children, it is critical that parents monitor their children\u2019s online activities with special scrutiny and impress upon fellow parents the vital importance of remaining vigilant.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Teresa Mull is an assistant editor of Spectator World and writes from the Pennsylvania Wilds.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to the harmful effects social media is having on young people, Clare Morell and fellow researchers at the Institute for Family Studies and the Ethics and Public<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":992,"featured_media":1892093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1627799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}