Kids Off Social Media Act Would Harm Childrens’ Safety and Privacy Online, Say Civil Society Organizations

A group of civil society organizations led by the Open Technology Institute (OTI) at New America and the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) issued an open letter opposing the Kids Off Social Media Act (S. 4213) introduced by Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Katie Britt (R-Ala.). The group—which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Fight for the Future, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation—lists its major concerns with the bill and calls on Congress to focus on passing a bicameral comprehensive privacy bill.

“The best way to move forward in protecting children’s privacy and security online is to pass federal privacy legislation. Doing so will protect everyone’s privacy and security,” said David Morar, lead drafter of the letter and a senior policy analyst at OTI. “Congress is right to prioritize addressing the online safety of young people, and we should do so through policies that ultimately empower minors online and protect privacy for everyone.”

The letter lists three aspects of the Kids Off Social Media Act as harming the privacy and safety of youth:

1. The bill will incentivize schools to spy on children.
2. The bill has a significant, potentially unconstitutional, restriction for young people’s access to online services.
3. The bill will likely undermine existing child safety efforts.

According to the groups, language in the bill would likely lead schools that rely on E-Rate funding—which provides discounts for internet services—to adopt content filtering tech that restricts students from accessing critical information, even for schoolwork. The letter states that the bill frames a school’s ability to access E-Rate funding as tied to language that education agencies will misinterpret as requiring the installation and use of AI-powered spyware to surveil students’ online activities during and outside of school hours.

“Enacting the current version of this bill would not only severely impact the privacy, safety, and First Amendment rights of children, its impact on schools reliant on E-Rate funding would worsen inequities that perpetuate the digital divide,” said Raza Panjwani, a senior policy counsel at OTI.

Read the letter.