Lawmakers Hope TikTok Is Just The Start Of Push To Rein In Social Media Harms
HuffPost
Legislators in Congress have introduced a bunch of proposals for addressing online harms, but it’s not clear if they’ll move.
WASHINGTON — Congress has just sent a bill to President Joe Biden’s desk that would ban the popular video-sharing app TikTok unless it divests from its Chinese parent company.
The legislation is a shocking crackdown on a social media business, but it comes as lawmakers dawdle on whether to rein in the broader industry or protect Americans’ digital privacy.
“It can’t just be about TikTok,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told HuffPost. “TikTok is the worst of these social media sites in terms of damage it can do, but Instagram does damage, YouTube does damage.”
Murphy is the co-author of a bipartisan bill, with Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), that would outlaw social media accounts for children under 13 and require parental consent for kids under 18.
It’s one of several proposals to create new standards for online safety and digital privacy that’ve been sitting on a shelf as the TikTok ban sailed through the House and Senate with surprising speed.