US Congress considers new laws for tech companies on child protection, privacy and competition

A majority of Democrats and Republicans have recently agreed that the federal government should do a better job of regulating the biggest technology companies, mainly social media platforms, as lawmakers have introduced a series of bipartisan bills. Children’s online safety, privacy, banning TikTok, and artificial intelligence are among the areas of potential regulation.

CHILD SAFETY

There are at least two competing child online safety bills in the Senate. One account, approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last year and reintroduced last week, would require social media companies to be more transparent about their operations and enable child safety settings by default. Minors would be able to disable addictive product features and content-pushing algorithms. This bill would also need social media companies to prevent certain types of illegal or harmful content to minors. A second bill, introduced last month, would take a more aggressive approach. It would ban children under 13 from using social media platforms, require parental consent for teenagers, and prohibit companies from using algorithms to recommend content to users under 18.

DATA PRIVACY

A bill reintroduced last week would prohibit companies from collecting personal information from younger teens and ban targeted advertising to children and teens. It would allow parents and children to delete personal data where possible. A separate bill passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee last year with broad bipartisan support seeks to create a ‘national privacy standard’ and prohibit the targeting of children for advertising, preempting state laws attempting to regulate privacy.

TIKTOK BAN

Lawmakers have introduced several bills to either ban or make it easier to deny TikTok. In the Senate, one bipartisan legislation has gained widespread support that, while not explicitly targeting TikTok, would give the Commerce Department the power to review and potentially restrict foreign threats to technology platforms. The White House has signalled that it would be supportive of this bill.