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Our state government has a responsibility to protect children from businesses willing to sacrifice their health for profit.
On May 23, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory urging policymakers to make social media safer for children, prompted by the clear connection between social media and the sharp rise in anxiety and depression. Leading research psychologist Jean Twenge attributes the staggering yearly suicide rate for young adults to increased social media use.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of suicides and suicide attempts by self-poisoning for 10- to 12-year-olds increased by 73% from 2019 to 2021.
Now the question is: Will Murthy’s recommendation have the same impact on Big Tech as his predecessor’s advisory had on Big Tobacco in 1964? I certainly hope so.
The surgeon general’s proclamation comes on the heels of Montana’s TikTok ban, the first of its kind in the nation. The law cites the app’s affiliation with China and lists a series of specific failures by TikTok to protect children from harmful content that encouraged taking excessive medication and suffocation. These TikTok challenges have proven fatal for many, including Ohio teenager Jacob Stevens, who died in April attempting to film a medically induced hallucination. He was only three years older than Chester resident Nylah Anderson, who died in December 2021 trying a different TikTok challenge. She was only 10 years old.
The government has a responsibility to protect children from businesses willing to sacrifice their health for profit. Some legislators are fighting back, but Pennsylvania leaders have been absent from the fight.
TikTok has already filed a lawsuit against Montana’s ban and is fighting a counteroffensive in the court of public opinion. On May 15, TikTok announced a series of initiatives to support its users, in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. In addition to creating a hub of resources accessible through the app, TikTok donated over $2 million in advertising credits (not funding) to organizations like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. To fight the teen mental health crisis, TikTok conveniently offers solutions that encourage more time spent on its app.
Mimicking the tobacco industry when it promoted adding filters to cigarettes, TikTok is utilizing a tried-and-true marketing strategy that is equal parts ingenious and insidious: selling a fraudulent solution to the problem it caused. Make no mistake, TikTok could heed expert research and introduce features to its app restricting time and content, particularly for minors, but it would rather make more money.
Since Big Tech is unwilling to prioritize our children’s mental health over profit, government intervention is required.
» READ MORE: TikTok got me through the pandemic. Then its algorithm turned on me. | Opinion
Montana is not alone; legislation passed in Utah in March aims to restrict the use of all social media for minors and require parental consent. Lawmakers are developing similar proposals in Arkansas, Texas, Ohio, Louisiana, and New Jersey.
At the federal level, a bipartisan group of representatives has proposed the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, which would “set a minimum age of 13 to use social media apps and require parental consent for 13 through 17-year-olds.” The Federal Trade Commission has also joined the fight by attempting to prohibit Meta, Facebook’s parent company, from monetizing children’s data.
The government restricting media to protect children is not a novel concept. The federal government passed and updated the Radio Act of 1927, which forbade obscene programming, and the Children’s Television Act of 1990, which limited the duration of advertising in programs for children. Even with important challenges concerning the First Amendment, courts have upheld the regulation of obscene and indecent programming as constitutional because of the importance of protecting children from harmful programming.
And whether that threat comes from smoking or scrolling, our government’s obligation to protect our children from danger should not waiver.
While legislation targeting TikTok in Pennsylvania is on the docket for the upcoming legislative sessions, the proposed ban only applies to government employees. State Rep. Darisha K. Parker, serving Philadelphia, has also put forth a better proposal that aims to hold social media companies accountable for hate speech, but neither comes close to Montana’s bold effort to protect its children.
TikTok may be an arsonist selling fire insurance, but Pennsylvania lawmakers are holding a bucket of water while watching the house burn down. Our children are trapped inside.
A.J. Ernst worked as an educator in Philadelphia for 14 years and earned his doctorate from Penn Graduate School of Education.