Summary
Vox explainer on Biden’s May 23, 2023 executive action declaring an “unprecedented youth mental health crisis” and the surgeon general’s accompanying advisory on social media risks. Walks through the federal bill landscape (KOSA, EARN IT Act, Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, COPPA 2.0) and state-level laws in Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana, California, Montana. Frames the central tension: real platform harms exist, but the policy response risks being weaponized by state AGs against LGBTQ content.
Key Points
- Biden EO creates Task Force on Kids Online Health and Safety (HHS + Commerce).
- Surgeon General Vivek Murthy advisory: “we do not have enough evidence to conclude that [social media] is sufficiently safe.”
- KOSA’s duty of care provision: platforms must prevent content that could “promote or contribute to” a list of harms — state AGs as enforcement vector.
- In the 2023 re-introduction of KOSA, “grooming” no longer listed as example of sexual exploitation.
- India McKinney (EFF): government telling parents how to parent is a categorical problem.
- Utah: verified social media ages = age verification for all users; Louisiana Pornhub traffic dropped 80% after age verification.
- California Age-Appropriate Design Code requires design features for younger users.
- Montana TikTok ban.
- COPPA 2.0: Cassidy (R-LA) / Markey (D-MA) — child-only privacy bill without duty-of-care content issues.
- Underlying tension: broad data privacy law would eliminate the need for age verification, but Congress unable to pass it.
Newsletter Angles
- The “why can’t we just pass ADPPA” question: every child-safety bill is partly a workaround for the absence of comprehensive data privacy law. Track why ADPPA keeps failing.
- Biden’s political positioning: child-safety EO in May 2023 was election-prep messaging as much as policy. The EO structure (task forces, advisories) is inherently light-touch.
- Cautionary history: 1998 COPPA is still the only federal consumer online privacy law. Any new bill inherits COPPA’s decades-old bottlenecks.
Entities Mentioned
- Joe Biden
- Vivek Murthy
- Marsha Blackburn, Richard Blumenthal
- EFF — India McKinney
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Ed Markey (D-MA) — COPPA 2.0
- Ron DeSantis
- Lizzo — cited as KOSA supporter
- Ken Paxton (TX AG)
- Fight for the Future, ACLU
- Frances Haugen — 2021 catalyst
- FTC
Concepts Mentioned
- KOSA / Duty of care
- Age verification / age gating
- EARN IT Act
- COPPA / COPPA 2.0
- California Age-Appropriate Design Code
- American Data Privacy Protection Act (ADPPA)
- FOSTA-SESTA
Quotes
“We generally don’t like it when the government is trying to tell parents the correct way to parent their children.” — India McKinney, EFF
“Our children have become unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment.” — Biden/Murthy language
Notes
Solid Vox explainer. Dated May 2023 — captures Biden-era federal push at its peak. Useful as a pre-Trump-2 baseline.