This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know have suicide thoughts, contact the Lifeline Suicide & Crisis on 988 or 1-800-273 talk (8255).
When my 16-year-old son Mason went through a painfully disintegration, he did what many children of his generation do: he turned to ticktok.
Mason used the social media site to look for positive confirmations and inspiring quotes. Instead, the Tiktok algorithm sent him the most horrible content and insisted on suicide and self -harm. Mason took his own life in November 2022.
What I have found on his phone is chasing me to this day, and Tiktok – and all social media platforms – must be held responsible when their algorithms and design lead to considerable damage.
Two decades say ‘just wait’, while children suffer, there is no excuse to rid the rights of states. (Matt Cardy/Getty images)
Imagine that my dismay when I heard that the congress, without a public debate and under the radar, now quietly a radical federal moratorium pushes that states would block against the protection of children against addictive algorithms who push and act on the next generation of online threats.
Federal AI Power Grab can put an end to state protection for children and employees
The moratorium is buried in a huge technical package, quickly moving and with little control, before most Americans even realize what is at stake. This moratorium would forbid states to maintain almost every law related to AI – including laws that “regulate automated decision -making”.
This means that blocking bills that are designed to enable parents to require safe standard settings, require age verification and to curb addictive design functions.
It would stop laws such as the online protection of Florida for minors with regard to online access to materials that are harmful to minors (HB 3).
It would limit New York’s Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act (S7694A), which prevents companies from offering children and teenagers addictive, data -driven algorithmic feeds without the consent of the parents.
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It would put the small protection of UTAH in Social Media Act (SB 194), whereby companies should not be recommended whether the social media accounts and data from minors recommend or share with users with which they are not connected.
The damage is not hypothetical. Just ask Megan Garcia, whose teenage son died after he was the target of content generated by AI. Or the countless families who struggle with deep films used in sextortion, or with children attracted in relationships with AI “companions” that encourage insulation and self -harm. AI is already being used to manipulate children, addicts and to mislead, and there are no crash barriers.
Proponents can claim that a federal AI framework is ‘around the corner’. We have previously heard similar arguments – about privacy, about data, about content aircraft – for 20 years. Two decades say ‘just wait’, while children suffer, there is no excuse to rid the rights of states.
The congress has not adopted any law in more than 25 years to protect children online. Now it wants to take away the rights of states that have taken action, while the AI ​​is stuck as a global race to the finish line that overwrites the safety of our children.
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Big Tech argues that a patchwork of the state laws will suppress innovation – but what is really at stake is not innovation, it is accountability. These companies do not want 50 sets of rules because they do not want rules. Moreover, they have found allies in the congress who are willing to silence the states noticed to protect families.
This moratorium is not only priority in the field of common sense legislation to protect our young people – it is a total giveaway for Big Tech, done in the name of “innovation” and massive profit while the costs are ignored in lives.
There is a two -fold amendment to get rid of this moratorium that this reckless over -range would stop and keep the door open to states to act when federal legislators will not do that. All members of the congress must support this amendment before another child dies due to online damage. Saving children’s lives is not a political issue, it is a moral and human issue.
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We know what happens when the congress lets itself regulate itself. Nothing. Children suffer and families like mine stay behind to pick up the pieces.
We need real guarantees for children, no back room agreements that are silent the only people who take real action to protect children: parents, lawyers and state leaders. This moratorium is a smoke curtain for Big Tech to do what it wants, and it must be stopped to become rights.
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