Brown, other AGs want surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms

Social media poses a big enough mental health risk that it should come with a tobacco-style warning label, the surgeon general has said, and 41 states' attorneys general agreed this week in a letter to Congress. Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown joined a bipartisan coalition of 41 attorneys general in a letter urging Congress to require warning labels on social media sites, saying that the addictive nature of endless scrolling and content algorithms pose mental health risks to adolescents.

“Every day, our youth are turning to social media platforms that, unknowingly to them, are designed to exploit their vulnerabilities and push them deeper into cycles of anxiety, depression, and self-doubt,” Brown said in a statement Wednesday. “Congress must safeguard the well-being of our youth and ensure they are protected from the harm lurking behind swipes and clicks.”

The letter comes nearly a year after Brown and dozens of other attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, arguing that its platforms are designed to be addictive to teens and children.

Many of the attorneys general suing Meta have signed off on Monday’s letter to Congress.

“Young people are facing a mental health crisis, which is fueled in large part by social media,” the letter said. “By mandating a surgeon general’s warning on algorithm-driven social media platforms, Congress can help abate this growing crisis and protect future generations of Americans.”

The letter adds that while the warning would not be “sufficient” to address the full scope of the youth’s mental health crisis, adding a social media warning “would be one consequential step toward mitigating the risk of harm to youth.”

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NetChoice, an association of tech companies that pushes for “free enterprise and free expression” on the internet, said the letter from the attorneys general “simplifies” the mental health crisis among teens while threatening free speech. Among the association’s members are Meta and X, the latter of which owns the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

“It’s bad policy,” NetChoice Vice President and General Counsel Carl Szabo said of the call for a surgeon general’s warning on social media platforms. “It’s a sloppy, simplistic way to approach these problems that assumes every single child is the same. It’s government deciding what speech is good and what speech is bad.”

But U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy agrees with the attorneys general that warning labels are needed on social media, a position he laid out in an opinion piece he wrote for the New York Times . The warning would be similar to those on tobacco products but would instead note that social media may be associated with negative mental health effects on adolescents.

In May, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a surgeon general’s advisory on social media’s effect on adolescents’ mental health, saying that around 95% of 13- to 17-year-olds report using social media.

“A longitudinal cohort study of [6,595] U.S. adolescents aged 12–15 … found that adolescents who spent more than 3 hours per day on social media faced double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of depression and anxiety,” the advisory said.

HHS did not respond to request for comment Thursday on the attorneys general’s letter.

According to a Maryland Department of Health survey of high school students , about 74.5% of Maryland high school students spent three or more hours of in front of a computer, watching TV, using their smart phone or another electronic device.

About 28% of Maryland public school students in 2022 reported that “their mental health was most of the time or always not good,” which included symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression.

Meanwhile, 15.8% of female students who answered the 2022 survey said that they were bullied through texting or social media. About 9% of male respondents also said that they were electronically bullied.

Despite the pushback from groups like NetChoice, the attorneys general letter says that social media platforms are not doing enough on their own to protect young users.

“This problem will not solve itself and the social media platforms have demonstrated an unwillingness to fix the problem on their own,” the letter says. “Therefore, we urge Congress to act by requiring warnings on algorithm-driven social media platforms, as recommended by the Surgeon General.”