The Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act is currently being debated and expected to pass with bipartisan support in Congress. A similar law (Child Online Protection Act) was passed in 1998 but never enacted due to litigation, which led to a permanent injunction in 2009. That same year, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was enacted, establishing a privacy policy for website operators as to when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and the responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online. This resulted in the thing that people have to click in order to access certain sites, such as those selling alcohol, marijuana, and so on, stating that they are over a specific age. Of course, kids can lie about this, and the costs involved in verifying the age of everyone accessing a website are prohibitive for all but the largest and most profitable Internet companies. In practice, many websites shut down, particularly those that didn't have a profit motive or sufficient profits to be feasible. This benefited the larger social media companies by making it more difficult for anyone to challenge them. Currently COPPA 2.0 is being debated and expected to pass. While we all love to see Mark Zuckerberg and Tik Tok raked over the coals by Ted Cruz and other Republican crusaders for the safety of children, and few of us would say that we are opposed to online privacy protection for children, what is this law actually going to achieve? The answer to that question is that we don't know. Every law can be expected to be enforced to the most ridiculous extreme, and this one is ripe for that. Rather than defining the responsibilities of a website operator, it establishes an unelected body, apart from the FCC, to set up the standards. It's easy to see why the Bill has bipartisan support. Republicans like it because they imagine that it will prevent children from viewing pornography online (although we already have laws for that) and that it will serve to keep children safe from online predators. Democrats like it because they know that when their appointees are in charge of the Internet censorship board, it can be used to prohibit children from accessing pro-life websites and can be used to place government pressures on websites that don't support LBGTQ, open borders, and other pet Leftist agendas. State and federal governments like it, because it puts the Internet in their hands and enables state attorneys general to sue website operators for anything they claim might cause anxiety to children. This means that states like California can exert pressure on the Internet as a whole to prohibit social, religious, and political content they disapprove of. What doesn't cause anxiety in children and teens? While they won't say so, the very people who are currently being put on the hot seat will benefit greatly from COPPA 2.0 because they can afford it, while any likely competitors will have to have very deep pockets in order to survive this unelected censorship board's endless stream of new and tougher regulations on the Internet. The end result will be that the government and only the largest social media companies will wholly control the content of the Internet, and we already know that they generally operate in concert whenever the Left is in control of the government and that Republicans rarely change anything when they have the power to do so. I am hoping that it doesn't pass the Senate, although it probably will. If passed, whoever is in control of the Biden Administration will surely make Biden sign it. Both of these being likely, I hope it doesn't survive the judicial branch.
Good afternoon to all- I am in favor of just about ANYTHING which will limit the time and subject matter kids and teens see on social media. In particular, I hate cell phones in the hands of kids. Even when I was still teaching, and that's been a while, I had a daily battle with kids in class who just could not survive without texting or watching. Cell phones in particular are extremely distracting and nothing competes with the phones for kids' attention. Makes it hard to teach or even control kids on cell phones. While I doubt the benefit of this sort of law if it passes, I am for anything which will control the time kids spend on their cell phones. you all be safe and keep well- Ed
The idea is fine but the practice may be awful. Giving the power over anything to the government is generally a bad idea. While they want to protect children from "drugs" alcohol, and tobacco, they are fine with them and their parents being subjected to continual advertisements for prescription drugs for everything from mental illness to cancer treatment as well as those horrible deodorant commercials for their genitalia.
Except for the almost anything part, I would agree. But these limitations should primarily be a parenting issue, and secondarily a classroom issue, but not a government censorship issue. I do think that school policies that require teachers to allow students to have cell phones in the classroom are wrong, and I can't imagine maintaining a teaching atmosphere that way. That should be up to the teacher; if a teacher doesn't mind them, fine.
While I think those who have written the bill know quite well where it will lead, many who signed onto it and are currently arguing in favor of it may be well-meaning. Good intentions doesn't make for a good law, however.
I understand that in other places like Canada, similar laws were used to throttle free speech of adults under the veil of "protecting children".