UPDATED 21:31 EDT / JULY 22 2024

POLICY

White House task force releases first-of-its-kind online safety report aimed at protecting kids

The White House’s Task Force on Kids Online Health and Safety today released a report featuring a number of strategies to protect American children online.

The topic of what too much time online is doing to the mental well-being of children in the U.S. has become a big deal over the last few years, leading to Big Tech bosses being denounced by a Senate Judiciary Committee at the start of the year for seemingly caring more about the bottom line and growth than children’s safety.

Added pressure was mounted on tech firms when U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy wrote a scathing op-ed in the New York Times in June this year. He called the mental health of the young a “medical emergency,” outlining the dangers of social media he’d already tallied in a 19-page report a year earlier. For Murphy, social media is so dangerous that, like cigarettes, it should come with a warning label.

Following the release of that report, the Biden-Harris Administration created the Task Force on Kids Online Health and Safety, of which Murthy was made a member. More than 100 pages long, the report gives guidance to parents and healthcare givers regarding social media use for children, while also focusing on matters such as sexual exploitation, privacy, best practices for kids, and how tech companies might better design age-appropriate apps for young folks.

“Children are often regulating and learning how to regulate emotions, and so it is important that media not be used as a replacement for looking at or processing important emotions,” Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, the task force co-chair and assistant secretary for mental health and substance use in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told CNN. “This report outlines a range of suggested guidelines, and there’ll be a series of ongoing resources as well.”

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra today said combatting the youth mental health crisis is a “top priority” under the Biden administration. The HHS has continually said that companies need to get the ball rolling with protecting kids by designing apps that aren’t so addictive. There have been lawsuits in the past over the issue, as well as various investigations. But though some states have taken up the mantle to make social media safer, free speech advocates have aired concerns about kids being essentially forced offline.

Photo: Freepik

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