No State of the Union address in my lifetime has had to begin with a line similar to President’s Biden’s last night: “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today.” While that sentiment is something that animates our work everyday at Issue One – we get it – it’s still striking to hear from an American president standing on the dais in the House of Representatives.
To borrow an oft-used phrase of the president’s: it’s not hyperbolic to say that our republic is facing an unprecedented attack on the very idea of freedom and self-governance. Never before have we seen a more coordinated effort to undermine our democratic norms and principles. And never before have our adversaries, both foreign and domestic, had a more powerful tool at their fingertips: an unregulated information environment that fuels disinformation and divisive rhetoric, with advanced AI technology rapidly blurring the line between fact and fiction.
Much of Biden’s speech was dedicated to rebuilding the middle class and doubling down on America’s commitment to fighting autocrats like Putin – necessary conditions for democracy to flourish and the focus of much commentary today. But he also spoke about long-overdue regulation of the tech industry, which is also crucial to strengthening our democracy.
Left to their own devices, social media companies have consistently chosen to put profits above the greater welfare of our communities. Their business practices are robbing children of their social skills, human relationships, and childhood innocence, and siphoning them into polarized communities at startlingly young ages. Unless we take meaningful action now, our children will inherit a world where truth is indistinguishable from fiction and where democracy fades to the background, replaced with savvy authoritarian figures who will undermine the rule of law and ignore the will of the people.
Passing landmark legislation during an election year has become increasingly strenuous and improbable, as we’ve recently seen with the bipartisan border proposal. But there are rare opportunities when consensus across the aisle is so strong and overwhelming that inaction cannot be accepted. That’s what we see with the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) – a popular and bipartisan bill that will protect kids from harmful and manipulative content online. We’ve been advocating for and calling on Congress to pass responsible social media safeguards and end the era of unaccountable Big Tech, and we can’t afford to wait any longer when so much is at stake.
Poll after poll shows how disturbed parents and kids are about the hate-filled, red-light district rabbit holes they go down every time they tap into social media apps. It’s a reality we live and breathe every day: polarized politics, a lack of shared facts and narratives, and a distrust in our institutions and in each other.
For decades social media companies have operated with no guardrails. They have designed their products to be manipulative and addictive with zero legal accountability. They’ve put profits ahead of kids’ safety. They’ve turned their heads away when confronted with the reality that their platforms are killing and exploiting our children, instead opting to deploy armies of lobbyists to Capitol Hill to kill any bill that would mandate stronger tools and safety measures to protect young users.
We cannot accept this outcome. It’s time to enact reasonable guardrails that will build a healthier information environment and form the bedrock for a stronger democracy.
So as the politicians and Hill staffers in DC try to figure out what can come after the President’s speech, they should look no further than protecting our kids online by passing KOSA. Sixty-two senators, a filibuster-proof majority, have already signed onto the bill. It awaits an equivalent show of bipartisanship in the House. Its provisions have been carefully negotiated to accommodate a broad spectrum of stakeholders – from civil libertarians to LGBTQ groups to conservative religious leaders. Now it just needs an extra heave-ho and then a signature from the man who just spoke about the democracy he hopes our kids, and their kids, will inherit.
It’s time we get this done and work together to build a better democracy that future generations will be proud of.