‘Big Tech is knowingly fueling a mental-health crisis in this country … – Morningstar

By Jon Swartz

Sen. Ed Markey's latest attempt at COPPA 2.0 bill would raise the age limit for privacy protections to 16 from 13 and ban ads targeted at children

Amid an escalating bipartisan outcry about the need to protect kids' safety online, punctuated by President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, a sequel to one of the last major pieces of tech legislation was reintroduced in the Senate on Wednesday.

Sen. Ed Markey's Children and Teens' Only Privacy and Protection Act, or COPPA 2.0, is long-gestating legislation that updates his 1998 COPPA law. It raises the age limit for privacy protections to 16 from 13, bans targeted ads aimed at children and introduces a first-of-its-kind "digital marketing bill of rights for minors."

"Big Tech is knowingly fueling a mental-health crisis in this country by exploiting kids and teens just so they can make an extra buck," Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has spent more than a decade trying to pass updates to the law, said in a statement. "Congress must pass COPPA 2.0 to put immediate safeguards in place that prevent Big Tech from tracking, traumatizing and targeting young people every second, every minute and every hour of the day."

Reports of child exploitation online soared at Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL)(GOOGL) Google, Meta Platforms Inc.'s (META) Instagram, and other social media firms over the last year, according to a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on Tuesday. The U.S. child safety agency was inundated with more than 32 million reports last year, about 2.7 million more than in 2021.

The original COPPA, which was last revised by the Federal Trade Commission in 2013, is one of the few federal privacy laws in the U.S. and one enforced by the FTC. In December, the agency levied a $275 million fine against "Fortnite" creator Epic Games Inc. for violating COPPA. Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL)(GOOGL) YouTube was hit with a similar fine in 2019.

In-depth: U.S. laws protecting kids online languish behind Europe

Attempts by Markey to update the 1998 law have sputtered for years, as has nearly every piece of tech regulation, including some recent highly touted bills to rein in Big Tech's powers. But there is growing support across the political spectrum to create comprehensive guardrails to protect young people online amid toxic social-media platforms, a national mental-health crisis and a jump in teen suicides over the past decade.

Congress has held a succession of hearings in recent years in which they berated Big Tech executives from Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Snap Inc. (SNAP), Twitter Inc. and, most recently, TikTok. In all that time, though, they have failed to pass meaningful legislation putting guardrails on social-media companies, which Biden pushed for earlier this year.

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'We must finally hold social-media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit," Biden said during his State of the Union speech in February "And it's time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us."

With Biden raising kids' safety online to an "A-1 issue," as one Markey staffer put it, the senator is more optimistic that COPPA 2.0 will make its way through the Democratic-controlled Senate. A vote on the bill could come this summer, though its fate may be more precarious in a deeply divided House.

Still, there is momentum on the issue, along with several stabs at bipartisan legislation. On Tuesday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, introduced the Kids Online Safety Act, comprehensive bipartisan legislation to protect children online and hold Big Tech accountable.

That bill, which shares some of the same goals as Markey's bill, could be paired in a joint piece of legislation with COPPA 2.0, according to a member of Markey's staff.

"For kids, the pressure to engage with social media in order to have a social life far outweighs their privacy concerns," Marco Belin, CEO of kids search engine Seekado, said in an email message. "With the inclusion of AI into many social media platforms, protecting individual privacy will become increasingly important and harder to achieve."

-Jon Swartz

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-06-23 1309ET

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'Big Tech is knowingly fueling a mental-health crisis in this country ... - Morningstar