'Big Tech is knowingly fueling a mental-health crisis in this country' --- Senator's long battle to protect kids online reaches new stage

  • 📰 MarketWatch
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 55 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 25%
  • Publisher: 97%

Health Health Headlines News

Health Health Latest News,Health Health Headlines

‘Big Tech is knowingly fueling a mental-health crisis in this country’ — Senator’s long battle to protect kids online reaches new stage

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.”

Reports of child exploitation online soared at Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL GOOG 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.

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.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 3. in HEALTH

Health Health Latest News, Health Health Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Gen Z less interested in Big Tech jobs out of college: surveyInsider tells the global tech, finance, markets, media, healthcare, and strategy stories you want to know.
Source: BusinessInsider - 🏆 729. / 51 Read more »