Senator Blackburn Champions Kids’ Privacy and Protection Online

By Caroline Melear

The internet is one of the greatest dangers children face today. Many parents share as a top concern the abuse of screen time and the proliferation of devices and apps. Long gone are the days when families merely worried about their children getting hurt playing sports or riding bikes with the neighborhood kids. Today they worry about social media and its myriad dangers.

Social media platforms Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook, all accessible at the touch of button, have become staples, but also major detriments, in our children’s lives. For many kids, they’re a breeding ground for cyber bullying, a kind of torment that follows them into the safety of their home. In the depths of the DMs and comments sections, verbal abuse is rampant and many kids can’t find an escape.

Along with bullying, the threats Big Tech poses run the gamut from psychological, social, mental, and even physical. Young girls seem to be especially susceptible to suffer adverse outcomes from social media use, whether body image issues, addiction, or even suicide and depression. Too much time online is catastrophic for young girls’ mental health. Girls are constantly bombarded with unrealistic beauty standards and lifestyles to compare themselves to. They see unsafe and illicit behavior glamorized and encouraged. There is a clear link between reported rates of depression and suicide among young girls and society’s increased adoption of smartphones and apps.

Young males are not escaping the tech fallout either. More than ever our youth are struggling with obesity in a world in which playing video games has taken precedence over playing outside. This further exacerbates mental health issues in children when they are not getting the physical activity nor sleep their bodies need.

Beyond these issues is the most horrifying fact that social media can provide cover to sexual predators and drug dealers for our children to fall prey to. Despite content moderation policies, social media platforms can and do host graphic sexual and violent content. The stories of children being baited online by people they believe to be their peers are everywhere, and the ease at which these predators can lure and exploit is appalling.

But tech executives know of these dangers. That’s why many of them forbid their own children from using such products, some have openly admitted. Given that these companies are driven by profit, the mounting social, emotional, and mental health costs of their technology are left to the consumer, the child, to incur. The burden is all the greater on the parent to act as an advocate and protect children from the influences found on social media.

Fortunately, U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is sponsoring crucial bipartisan legislation, coined the Kids Online Safety Act, to help protect kids online. She, along with U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), has spearheaded an initiative to rein in Big Tech’s stranglehold on our youth and provide parents with the knowledge and resources to keep their kids safe online. Most importantly, the bill would require that companies implement more safety features for minors and make said safety features the default as well as mitigate harmful content.

While the bill pends in Congress, Blackburn has also released a simple yet essential guide for parents to help protect their kids online.

“Big Tech designs their platforms to be addictive to kids and harder for moms and dads to keep up with. My tech guide will give parents the tools to keep their kids safe online – especially during the summer months, as kids indulge in more screen time,” Senator Blackburn told The Conservateur.

The guide instructs parents on how to keep their kids’ personal information private, to be wary of strangers, and to be engaged with what their kids are doing, and are being exposed to, online.

As the world continues to evolve into an even more tech-focused landscape, it is vital that parents feel they have some control in protecting their kids online. Parents, regardless of political party, want the best for their children, and legislation such as Blackburn’s will help foster a world in which children’s innocence and well-being are preserved. Her legislation and action plan for parents are crucial steps toward defending America’s most vulnerable demographics: our children.

Photo via WJHL Nashville