Roll Call
Kids online safety bills move forward from Senate, House panel
Design It For Us, a youth-led group that advocates on social media design, led a letter signed by dozens of civil-society groups urging the committee not to forward the KIDS Act and its version of KOSA. The letter raised concerns about the lack of a duty of care, broad preemption of state laws and the bill’s knowledge standard.
mlex
Instagram teen safeguards fall short, advocate says in New Mexico Meta trial
A tech safety advocate told jurors Wednesday that Instagram’s teen safety features fail to shield young users from harmful content, as the State of New Mexico wrapped its case accusing Meta Platforms of misleading the public about the risks its platforms pose to children.
POLITICO Pro's Technology: California Decoded
Is age-gating social media the answer? Advocates aren’t sure.
The concerns from Smithing and other advocates, like co-chair of the nonprofit Design it for Us Sebastian Mahal, suggest politicians pursuing age-gating in Europe and the United States may find themselves at odds with some of the groups they’ve counted as allies in past fights to rein in social media giants.
Mahal told Decoded in a statement that a blanket social media ban “restricts access instead of addressing the root problems through meaningful platform accountability.”
“We urge Governor Newsom to continue championing design-centered regulation that tackles the core business model of social media and AI products,” Mahal added.
CBS News Los Angeles
Social Media Addiction Trial
“Growing up, I experienced theft — theft of my attention, theft of my childhood, theft of the childhood of millions,” Iyer said. “And not only was it theft, big tech took our childhood and renamed it and reshaped it, morphed it into something that they said would benefit us.”