Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 36
It’s hard to get 42 states to agree on much. But a bipartisan group of attorneys general on Tuesday demanded that Congress require Surgeon General warning labels on social media apps to help curtail addiction and a mental health crisis among young adults.
“As state Attorneys General, we sometimes disagree about important issues, but all of us share an abiding concern for the safety of the kids in our jurisdictions — and algorithm-driven social media platforms threaten that safety,” the 42 attorneys general said in a letter to Congress.
States have taken legal action against a number of social media companies, including Meta and TikTok.
The letter echoed much of what Surgeon General Vivek Murthy outlined in a scathing New York Times op-ed in June, that drew a direct comparison between the apps — TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and others — to cancer causing cigarettes.
“Everyone needs to know the risk associated with these social media platforms,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
Appending a warning to social media apps requires Congressional approval.
Congress has so far ignored Murthy’s plea to introduce a bill requiring warning labels. But the Senate did pass the Kids Online Safety Act this summer — a proposal backed by Microsoft, X and Snap — that would require tech companies to protect children from dangerous online content and shoulder the burden when their platforms cause harm.
Source: CNN
