Design It For Us Statement on Federal Endorsement Package

Design it For Us co-chairs Emma Lembke and Zamaan Qureshi released the following statement:

“The Design It For Us Coalition is proud to announce its endorsement of three bills introduced by lawmakers in the House and Senate – The Kids Online Safety Act, the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act and The Kids PRIVCY Act. 

These bills would put the onus squarely on Big Tech companies to make their social media products and online platforms safer at the point of design. By outlining the steps that Big Tech, rather than kids and parents, must be responsible for in mitigating profit-driven harm, the lawmakers leading this effort echo our call: we must design social media and online platforms with young people in mind.

As a coalition of teens and young adults who have been forced to navigate the unregulated online world on our own, we refuse to continue on as victims of a business model predicated on manipulation. Instead of succumbing to fear and forcing us offline entirely, these bills will empower our generation to make our online environments safer with default safety standards that put us in control. 

No bill is a silver bullet, especially when it comes to the might of Big Tech and its seemingly endless resources, but these bills lead with the critical notion: Big Tech must take responsibility for the harm it causes, not kids or parents. It will take all collective efforts to take on the power of Big Tech, and we are glad to work alongside the lawmakers fighting to make that happen.”

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