The youth-led coalition, Design It For Us, placed hundreds of signs on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, calling on lawmakers to pass legislation to require Big Tech to put young people's safety and well-being ahead of profits, and design online platforms for kids, teens, and young adults at U.S. Capitol, West Lawn on July 17, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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Kids online safety bills to get vote in Senate, Schumer says
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will bring two bipartisan bills aimed at boosting online safety and privacy for kids to a vote this week after mounting pressure from advocates.
Schumer announced during a floor speech Tuesday that the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 2.0 will be brought to the floor this week, the leader’s office said.
Children’s online safety advocates, including teens and parents of children who died after facing online harms, have been pushing the Senate to act on the bills for years — especially KOSA, which has more than 60 co-sponsors in the Senate, giving it enough support to pass even with filibuster rules in place.
“Over the past few months I’ve met with families from across the country who have gone through the worst thing a parent could endure — losing a child. Rather than retreating into the darkness of their loss, these families lit a candle for others with their advocacy,” Schumer said in a statement.
“It has been long and daunting road to get this bill passed, which can change and save lives, but today, we are one monumental step closer to success,” he added.
KOSA, led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), would put in place regulations for how social media companies operate for minors online, aimed at mitigating risks the apps have for making children addicted and impacting their mental health. In part, it would add a duty of care standard to mitigate the promotion of harmful content and addictive features.
COPPA 2.0, led by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), would update privacy standards tech companies need to follow for minors on their platforms. It would also ban targeted advertising to kids online.
The bills face a less certain path in the House. A House version of KOSA was scheduled for a House Energy and Commerce Committee markup in June, but the markup was canceled after GOP House leaders pushed back on a separate bill — the American Privacy Rights Act — that was also slated for discussion at the meeting.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) called on the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday to investigate the social media platform X after the site appeared to prevent users from following Vice President Harris’ campaign account on Monday. Nadler’s letter calls on Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to look at the “serious and time-sensitive censorship issue” on the platform. Harris launched her presidential campaign on Monday after President …
Several senators pressed OpenAI for answers Monday about its safety and employment practices after a group of whistleblowers filed a complaint alleging the company blocked staff from warning regulators about the risks of its artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Led by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the group of mostly Democratic senators asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about the AI startup’s public commitments to safety, …
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued orders for eight companies to provide information about surveillance pricing as it seeks to study the potential impacts such practices have on privacy, competition and consumer protection, the agency said Tuesday. The FTC issued orders to Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co. The eight companies advertise their …
In her fight to represent victims “under attack by stalkers, pervs, a‑‑holes and trolls,” Carrie Goldberg says the work is personal. “I fall in love with cases the way that people fall in love with other people,” said Goldberg, an attorney and author of the book “Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls.” And when that work involves taking on massive corporations and tech companies, it can “also …
News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics:
Meta releases new open-source AI model
Meta has released its biggest open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model yet, known as Llama 3.1, which the tech gaint claims can compete with leading models, like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropic’s 3.5 Claude Sonnet, TechCrunch reported.
Wiz calls off $23 billion deal with Google
Wiz, an Israeli cybersecurity startup, has called off a reported $23 billion deal with Google and said it instead plans to pursue an initial public offering (IPO), Reuters reported.
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Public Citizen and the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator will host a virtual event called “Advancing a Pro-Public Interest AI and Energy Agenda” featuring Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. ET.
In Other News
Branch out with other reads on The Hill:
Google makes abrupt U-turn by dropping plan to remove ad-tracking cookies on Chrome browser
LONDON (AP) — Google is dropping plans to eliminate cookies from its Chrome web browser, making a sudden U-turn on four years of work to phase out a technology that helps businesses tracks users online. The company had been working on retiring third-party cookies, which are snippets of code that …
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean prosecutors said Tuesday they have arrested the founder of technology giant Kakao Corp. for alleged stock price rigging during his company’s takeover of a major K-pop agency last year. Kim’s arrest came after the Seoul Southern District Court approved an arrest …
Vice President Harris leads former President Trump by 2 points in one of the first polls taken after President Biden’s decision to step aside from … Read more
Vice President Harris on Tuesday held her first campaign event as the lead contender for the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, rallying supporters … Read more
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