TTP Director Katie Paul Discusses Children’s Online Safety with Financial Times 
The issue of social media and mental health may be reaching a boiling point, as children’s online safety laws move through state legislatures and platforms face increased scrutiny from public health officials. To discuss the momentum behind this shift, TTP Director Katie Paul joined Financial Times reporter Elaine Murphy on the Tech Tonic podcast. “We know that the algorithms at work have been designed to manipulate,” Katie said. “Part of that manipulation is making efforts to keep kids online as long as possible and keep eyeballs on ads.” 
 
Tech companies have responded to regulatory threats with a deluge of new, dubiously effective safety features: Meta introduced expanded parental monitoring tools, while Discord implemented them for the first time. TikTok, meanwhile, adopted a toothless one-hour screen limit that can be easily circumvented. These companies are walking a thin line – if they effectively help children spend less time on their platforms, they’ll lose money. If they ignore child safety and wellbeing, they risk a legislative crackdown. As Katie pointed out, Big Tech pours millions of dollars into lobbying to block child safety bills for a reason. “Kids are a huge market for these companies, and it will really cut into their bottom line if they can no longer collect these data points on children.”