Hi Friend –

It’s been 25 years since Congress last passed legislation to protect kids online – and since then, social media companies have found plenty of ways to ensnare and addict children on the internet.

As I wrote to you earlier this month, the Big Tech CEOs faced skeptical lawmakers at a Senate hearing on January 31st, with parents in the audience who lost kids to social media’s harms. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned to face these families to offer an apology, but an apology isn’t enough to protect our kids online.

It’s obvious that Big Tech won’t self-regulate – so we need lawmakers to step in and do that job for them and finally pass legislation to protect kids online. Please take action today and tell your Senators to support the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

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For years now, Big Tech has harvested and collected our kids’ most intimate data for profit – an internal email from Meta pegged the lifetime value of a 13-year-old at roughly $270 – and designed platforms to keep them clicking, regardless of the threats to their health, privacy, and safety. [1]

As the Senate hearing demonstrated, there is now clear evidence that these platforms have knowingly created harmful products and systematically failed to address these harms – harms that have led to depression, (between 2010 and 2019, teen depression rates doubled, with teenage girls seeing the sharpest increase), online bullying, child sexual exploitation, and even suicide. [2]

The Kids Online Safety Act from Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn is our best shot at addressing this urgent and widespread problem anytime soon. And with recent improvements to the bill, we now have more than 60 senators across party lines supporting KOSA. We’re closer than ever before to passing significant legislation to protect kids online after more than two decades of congressional inaction. [3]

An apology from Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t do anything to keep our kids safe, or to address the suffering that grieving parents and young people have endured due to Big Tech’s relentless lust for profits. It’s time for the Senate to do its job and bring KOSA to the floor for a vote. Please contact your Senators today and ask them to support this important bill.

Thanks for standing up to help keep our kids safe online,

Nicole Gill
Co-founder and Executive Director
Accountable Tech

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1. Washington Post: Social media CEOs testify

2. National Library of Medicine: Rising Rates of Adolescent Depression in the United States: Challenges and Opportunities in the 2020s

3. Washington Post: Senate poised to pass biggest piece of tech regulation in decades

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