The unlikely alliance bringing the tech giants to heel

An alliance of little-known advocacy groups has convinced five states to pass laws to protect kids online and is now making inroads in Washington.

The nonpartisan coalition has done it by delivering parents’ and kids’ stories about bullying and exploitative content on Facebook, TikTok and other platforms. By focusing on the harms to kids’ health, these organizations have helped enact laws in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and New York meant to regulate social media for minors.

Even though the laws are facing legal challenges from a well-resourced tech sector, these advocates have now managed to kick a famously do-little Congress into bipartisan motion: The Senate is expected to pass the Kids Online Safety Act on Tuesday, a bill that would make companies responsible for the ill effects of design features that recommend content and encourage engagement.

When the chamber considered a procedural step on the bill Thursday, 86 senators voted to advance the measure. Only Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opposed it. Senators credited the overwhelming margin to the families.

“We could never have reached this point without parents of children who tragically took their own lives because of what happened to them on social media who came down here to relentlessly lobby,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor.

He said those sessions were “some of the most painful and important meetings I’ve ever had.”

Ironically, the tech companies have long pleaded with Congress to step in to avoid the policy patchwork the industry is facing on other fronts, including online privacy and artificial intelligence . But now that the issue has gained traction in Washington, the coalition of advocacy groups — Common Sense Media, ParentsTogether, Fairplay, and the Tech Oversight Project, among others — is driving the conversation.

If the Senate passes the bill, it will be the furthest Congress has come to ending the laissez-faire governance of the internet that has prevailed since the web’s infancy three decades ago. Speaker Mike Johnson has said he’s interested, raising the possibility the bill could become law before the end of the year.

Lawmakers said the families made the issue personal and urgent by explaining how bullying and predation on the sites led their children to take their own lives, or how malign influences prompted them to take drugs or engage in harmful behavior.

“When these parents come to D.C., we’ve seen how they have successfully lobbied congressional representatives to help pass this life-saving legislation,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors, in a statement to POLITICO. “Moms on a mission have always proven to be an unstoppable force.”

Blackburn and the other chief sponsor, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), first introduced the bill in February 2022 in the aftermath of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s Senate testimony that the company knew its products were harming users’ mental health. But it never reached a floor vote and only 13 senators co-sponsored it.

Opposition wasn’t just coming from the tech giants and their lobbying arm NetChoice. Groups often allied with the left, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have echoed the industry’s free speech concerns, while those on the right, including former Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum’s Patriot Voices advocacy group, worried about censorship.

NetChoice last year convinced a federal district court judge in San Jose to put the California law on hold and is trying to do the same in other states. It says the state laws, and the Senate bill, violate the First Amendment, and points to efforts by social media companies to protect kids online with parental controls and privacy settings.

The groups have worked their networks to counter criticism on the left. Issue One enlisted Richard Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat who led his party in the House from 1989 to 2003. Common Sense Media's Danny Weiss, who was Rep. Nancy Pelosi ’s chief of staff when she led Democrats back to the House majority in 2019, has been working the halls of Congress.

Blackburn has pointed to backing from religious groups, such as the Christian Camp and Conference Association, to rebut criticism from the right.

Blumenthal and Blackburn got Schumer and a filibuster-proof majority of other senators to sign on earlier this year after they dropped language permitting state attorneys general to enforce the law, which some senators viewed as an invitation to ideologues to pressure the companies to censor speech.

Getting the bill through the House, where it has the backing of Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), is the next step. Rodgers, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, has said she plans to hold a vote in her committee soon.

To shore up House support, the Tech Oversight Project released polling last month showing that more than 3 in 4 voters in Rodgers’ district, that of her committee’s ranking member, Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), and 22 other competitive House districts, backed the legislation.

Speaker Johnson told CNBC he expects the measure has a lot of support in his chamber. “The internet is the wild, wild West, and some of these reforms are overdue,” he said.

Coming together

The advocates said the momentum started to shift in 2021 when Haugen testified before the Senate Commerce Committee that Facebook was aware its products were harming kids’ mental health.

At the time, many parents and teens had seen the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma,” which laid out how the sites could have disturbing effects on kids and adults. When Haugen released internal data that showed Facebook and its photo-sharing site Instagram were associated with negative self-perceptions, anxiety and depression, it galvanized teens, parents, media watchdogs, tech policy groups, Christian organizations and doctors into action.

“Laws — we need laws to change, because these companies will not regulate themselves,” said Dalia Hashad, an adviser to ParentsTogether, recalling the thinking among parents at the time. Hashad had worked on campaigns for the ACLU and Avaaz, an online activist group focused on progressive issues. “So we looked at what was viable,” she said.

Hashad began talking with tech companies about a 2020 U.K. law called the Age Appropriate Design Code. The law requires high privacy settings for kids, a limit on data collection and a ban on prompts aimed at keeping children engaged. It also requires social media companies to consider the best interests of children in the design of their platforms.

Through that advocacy work, ParentsTogether connected with Fairplay, a 25-year-old children’s advocacy organization composed of parents, doctors and teachers, which was setting up a coalition of organizations to propose age-appropriate design bills to state legislatures.

The coalition included Common Sense Media, the Center for Humane Technology, the Center for Digital Democracy, Accountable Tech and 5Rights, which worked on the original U.K. legislation.

The Center for Digital Democracy is a consumer rights group whose founders have worked on online media and privacy policy initiatives since the early 1990s.

The Center for Humane Technology, a six-year-old advocacy organization founded by former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris that helped make “The Social Dilemma,” is a relative newcomer . So is Accountable Tech, a group founded in 2020 to push social media regulation.

Others joined the cause: the Young People’s Alliance, Design It For Us, and LOG OFF — all focused on shaping social media policy based on the personal experiences of their young founders.

California lawmakers were already at work on a bill, but the new Kids Code Coalition helped convince lawmakers in Connecticut, Colorado, Maryland and New York to pass more new laws.

Other states, including Arkansas, Utah, Florida and Texas, have also restricted social media access for children, adding to a patchwork of state laws that is pressuring Congress to set federal rules.

That, the advocates hope, will be the Kids Online Safety Act.

There are now over 200 local and national organizations , many focused on pediatrics and mental health, that support that bill, as well as tech industry players like Snap, X, Microsoft and Pinterest.

A benefactor

Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, has helped fund the effort.

In 2022, the Omidyar Network, one of several philanthropic organizations in his Omidyar Group, put out a paper on its responsible tech philosophy, which asserts that technology should serve society. “For too long, we have allowed digital technology to march forward unmoored from any societal vision, waiting until the damage is done to ask how society can remedy its harms,” the paper said. “This must change.”

It called for regulation and a new way of thinking about technology — one that accepts guardrails even if they limit profit.

Over the last three years, the Omidyar Network has doled out millions to groups promoting laws to regulate social media — including the Center for Humane Technology, Common Sense Media, 5Rights and the Tech Oversight Project. It also put money into youth-led policy groups Design it For Us, LOG OFF and the Young People’s Alliance through contributions to the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund .

Omidyar’s funding also created an organization called Reset, which worked with Haugen after she testified in Congress to coordinate meetings with government officials in Europe.

“You don’t need to match them dollar for dollar, but you do need to provide an infrastructure,” said Mike Kubzansky, the Omidyar Network’s CEO, of the challenge of facing off with the tech giants. “You do need to provide some room for these groups to get their sea legs and figure out how they can be effective.”

Lobbying the House

Senate passage of the Kids Online Safety Act would be a major achievement for the groups. But it’s not the end of the battle.

They now must convince the House to act.

Earlier this month, Rodgers, who supports the bill, canceled a planned vote, citing objections from some in the GOP caucus. She said she plans to reschedule.

Pallone has been circumspect . He has indicated that he wants strong privacy rules, perhaps stronger than what’s on the table.

The House version of the Kids Online Safety Act , introduced by Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), has 36 other cosponsors — not the overwhelming show of support the Senate bill, with 69 sponsors, had before it reached the floor.

Julianna Arnold, a Parents for Safe Online Spaces member who lost her daughter to counterfeit Percocet purchased on Instagram, said the proponents are undeterred.

“We’re not going to stop. It’s too important,” she said.