A key Senate committee advanced two bills aimed at protecting the safety of children and teenagers online in broad bipartisan fashion, bringing Congress one step closer to enacting new restrictions and safeguards for young Americans.
The Senate Committe on Commerce, Science, and Transportation voted to advance the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, which aims to prohibit an operator of a website or mobile application from collecting personal information about child and teen users, and the Kids Online Safety Act, aims to protect children from mental health disorders or associated behaviors, including the promotion or exacerbation of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, and substance abuse disorders.
If passed, the bills would be the first to update children's privacy protections online since the 1990s.
Concerns over youth online safety escalated last year after a Facebook whistleblower shared documents revealing that Facebook knew its Instagram photo-sharing platform could be toxic for some younger users.
A growing community of grieving parents have lobbied Congress to expand federal safeguards for children online.
Since 2020, Debbie Schmill has advocated for her daughter, Becca Schmill, who died from a fentanyl-laced pill she got on Snapchat. Schmill, who says her daughter Becca’s life began unraveling when she was 15, told Spectrum News that she believes social media is to blame.
“I love my daughter," Schmill said. "I loved her. I’m not going to get to see her grow up. I’m not going to hear her laugh again or have her hugs."
Schmill told Spectrum News that she learned her daughter was sexually assaulted at a party that she discovered online. She also said Becca was bullied online and then turned to drugs to cope, which she found online.
Schmill said she saw her daughter's "interactions after she passed." She added that the police went through Becca's phone and they saw conversations from Becca about drugs. She thinks it is an "egregious thing" that drug dealers have the ability to reach out to kids.
It is unclear if online protections would have saved Becca's life, but experts believe getting the conversation started is one of the first steps to saving lives.
“It will create a new internet for children and teens. It will create one where platforms have a duty to take care of children, to think about their wellbeing,” Josh Golin, the Executive Director of Fairplay, an advocacy group whose mission is to protect kids online, told Spectrum News. “We still need a floor vote in the Senate for both of these bills. We still need a House companion to these bills, so there’s a way to go, but if Congress is dedicated, we can really do it.”
Schmill said she wants to send a message to the social media companies, who are fiercely lobbying against these proposed regulations.
“We are burying our kids unnecessarily," she said. "If that doesn’t move you, I don’t know what does. How can profits be more important than that?"
In response to a request for comment from Spectrum News, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, pointed to different initiatives they have rolled out in regards to providing teenagers with age-appropriate experiences on their platforms.