NEW YORK CITY — More than a dozen parents gathered in front of Meta's offices in Lower Manhattan on Friday morning to learn about the social media platform's ability to collect children's social media data and recommend content to them through algorithms. sponsored two bills in the New York Senate that would limit the
The group, founded and led by former New York Times reporter Julie Cielfo, is called MAMA (Mothers Against Media Addiction). They wore neon green beanies and held signs that read “#KidsBeforeTech.” Its members, many of whom have lost children to harm exposed through social media, demonstrated in January at a U.S. Senate hearing on Big Tech and child safety. “I'm sorry for everything you've been through,” Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told them during the hearing.
“He actually looked into my eyes for a few minutes and thought, 'You don't know who I am,'” Scelfo told NBC News in an interview after the rally, adding that Zuckerberg He mentioned acknowledging grieving parents during a Senate hearing. “And I'm someone who has been asking people for years to think more critically about how all these technologies are wreaking havoc on the basic institutions of democracy.”
The issues discussed by parents and child safety advocates at Friday's rally go far beyond the purpose of the New York bill, said actress and author Sheetal Sheth, a MAMA member and speaker at the event. said the bill is “the bare minimum” to regulate Big Tech. .
One parent, Mary Roddy, said she was the target of online sextortion on Facebook and had a photo of her late son Riley, who died by suicide at age 15 in 2021.
“It's been nearly three years since Riley's death and nothing has changed,” Roddy said.
It was introduced in 2023 alongside the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which provides assistance to children who have been sexually coerced or had sexual content posted online, Mehta told NBC News. He introduced his participation in the “Take It Down” initiative to NBC News. Meta also pointed to guidance for children and parents on sextortion, strict standards for minors on Facebook Messenger, and safety notices in Instagram's direct messages.
The two bills in the New York State Senate were introduced by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who spoke at the protest. The bill is still awaiting submission from a Senate committee. One is called the Stopping the Exploitation of Addictive Feeds for Children (SAFE) Act, and the other is called the New York State Children's Data Protection Act.
The SAFE Act would require social media platforms to opt kids out of algorithmic feeds (which they call “addictive”) and instead feed them posts from accounts they follow. It requires users to display a chronological feed without the content suggested by the algorithm. It also prohibits social media platforms from sending notices to children between midnight and 6 a.m. The New York Children's Data Protection Act also prohibits online sites from “collecting personal data of individuals under the age of 18 without notice.” “using, sharing or otherwise processing” is prohibited. Agree. ”
Both bills would restrict how social media companies can offer their products to children in New York state and how those companies can profit from child users. The “safety” law requires social media companies not to collect biometric data or require government identification “that many New Yorkers do not possess,” and “to be available to all New Yorkers of all ages.” It requires that a method of verification be provided. The Children's Data Protection Act would not require age verification, but would instead require companies to rely on “browser or device signals” that indicate a user is a minor.
“This country lags far behind other countries in ensuring basic regulation,” Scelfo said, referring to the various laws passed in Europe to regulate social media platforms.
In the United States, various regulatory proposals for social media companies have been rejected or stalled in Congress.
The New York bill sponsored by MAMA and other groups is part of a growing movement to propose and enact social media regulation at the state level, and advocates of Big Tech regulation have had greater success. In Florida, for example, the state House passed a controversial bill in February that would ban children under 16 from using social media, even with parental permission. The bill includes language similar to New York's less restrictive bill, as well as similar proposals and laws in other states, including Arkansas, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey and California.
The Washington Post reported that MAMA received funding from the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology, which produced the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma.” The nonprofit organization is also advocating for the Kids Online Safety Act, a federal law that would impose new obligations on social media companies to prevent children from being exposed to content deemed harmful. Critics say the bill threatens children's First Amendment rights and puts the power to censor the internet in the hands of partisan state authorities.
Big Tech companies and researchers are also challenging the idea that social media is addictive, which is at the heart of New York City's proposed SAFE law. Although addiction is in MAMA's name, the organization does not make medical claims, Scelfo said.
“I am not a doctor, and MAMA does not use the word addiction in a clinical sense. However, we use it to communicate a fundamental problem in our society: dependence on media and technology.” “I'm doing it,” she said.
“There are screens everywhere now. And thanks to the internet and a constant flow of content 24 hours a day, we're flooding people's minds and hearts with more information than they can process. Even elevators have screens. , screens are also being installed in waiting rooms, restaurants, and gas pumps, which is not good for human health.”
