The latest work from EPPC’s scholars.

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November 21, 2023
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Dear Friend,

EPPC will kick off its year-end campaign a week from today on #GivingTuesday, and I’d like to ask now that you plan to join us with a fully tax-deductible gift by December 31^st.

America is built on social and moral values that are true and good. And yet these values are under assault and in danger of collapsing in favor of a darker drift toward utopian fantasies.

Thinkers on both Left and Right no longer agree on what it means to be an American and appear to be abandoning the American project altogether.

By contrast, EPPC embraces the principles on which our nation was founded and views them as the best way to advance human flourishing in our own time. We are committed to upholding these truths, articulating and applying them coherently to public policy and public discourse.

This work is more important than ever, and with Giving Tuesday a week away, I hope you will partner with us to continue advancing our mission in 2024. ([link removed])

You can read below to see an example of the vital work EPPC is doing to renew our country—a brief we just released in partnership with the Institute for Family Studies, on "Making Smartphones and App Stores Safe for Kids ([link removed]) ."

This brief presents the harms to children caused and facilitated by the virtually unregulated smartphone, tablet, and app stores industries. We present several solutions that lawmakers and industry leaders could implement, which would ensure devices and their app stores are safer for children and bring much-needed accountability to Big Tech.

I wish you and your family a blessed Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,

Ryan T. Anderson

President
Ethics and Public Policy Center
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Making Smartphones and App Stores Safe for Kids: Federal, State, and Industry Measures
Clare Morell and Michael Toscano
Ethics and Public Policy Center and Institute for Family Studies

This brief will present the current harms to children caused and facilitated by smartphones (and tablets) and the app stores they host, driven by Big Tech companies’ financial incentives that misalign with the welfare of kids. The device-and-app-store industry has been virtually unregulated, especially for child safety. We present several possible solutions for lawmakers and industry leaders to implement, which ensure devices and their app stores are safer for children and bring much-needed accountability.

Recently, there has been significant attention given to the harms of social media and online pornography for children, galvanizing lawmakers across several states to enact laws to require age verification of pornography sites (blocking individuals under the legal age of 18 from gaining access) and parental consent for minors to open social media accounts (i.e., form online contracts). At the federal level, three bipartisan bills to better protect kids online have gained momentum, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), COPPA 2.0, and the EARN IT Act. These measures are critical; however, they only address one level of the problem: the website (or platform). We fully support and have effectively contributed to this policy work, but will argue that it is now necessary to open up another front to address the threats to child safety online—directing attention toward the devices that serve as children’s main portals to the internet and social media platforms (and a myriad of other apps).
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