November, 16 2023, 08:42am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Cory Combs, Issue One: ccombs@issueone.org
David Monahan, Fairplay: david@fairplayforkids.org
New poll finds overwhelming public support for bipartisan legislation to protect kids from online harms
Nearly 9 in 10 U.S. voters support the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) which would adopt responsible safeguards
Bipartisan legislation that would require social media platforms to protect kids and teens from online harms has near universal support across the political spectrum, according to a new poll released today by Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media and Fairplay. The findings come amid growing calls for lawmakers to put responsible safeguards in place to address the harmful impact of social media on young people after another whistleblower came before Congress to testify that Meta knew its products were hurting kids.
In the new poll of U.S. voters, conducted by Hans Kaiser and Associates/Hart Research, 87% of the electorate believes that it is important for the president and Congress to take action to combat the harms being caused by social media platforms. This includes 86% of respondents who voted for former President Trump in the 2020 presidential election, and 88% of voters who supported then-candidate Joe Biden. Nearly all voters (94%) agree that mental health challenges facing children and teens today are a serious problem, and three in four (73%) blame social media and say the platforms have had a negative impact on the mental health of youth over the last 20 years.
Further demonstrating the overwhelming public support for congressional action, 86% of voters support the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require social media platforms to protect minors from specific online harms, such as the promotion of eating disorders, suicide, substance abuse, and sexual exploitation. The bill would provide children and parents with new safeguards, require the strongest safety settings by default, and impose penalties on companies whose design features expose children to these types of harms on their platforms.
“Parents have had enough. They’re doing everything they can to keep their kids safe online, but parents can’t do this alone,” said Alix Fraser, director of Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media. “Congress must take action now by passing KOSA into law. Voters are demanding leadership, and it’s time for lawmakers to deliver on their promises and take meaningful steps to keep our children safe online and finally hold tech companies accountable.”
Support for KOSA crosses partisan lines, with 84% of Republicans, 92% of Democrats, and 81% of independents in favor of it. Only 8% of poll respondents expressed opposition to KOSA.
“For years, Big Tech has put profits ahead of kids’ lives while Congress has sat on the sidelines,” said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay. “Our nation’s leaders can no longer be silent in the face of a strong bipartisan majority of the public that wants to see strong action to protect young people online. KOSA will make the internet a safer and healthier place for kids and teens.”
More than 90% of all respondents also expressed concern about a wide range of negative impacts social media is having on children and teens, from being vulnerable to online predators to rates of cyberbullying, anxiety, depression, and suicide.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics has long understood the value in the Kids Online Safety Act’s approach to making online environments and experiences healthier and safer for children and teens, and these results make clear that the American public understands the need for the accountability and safeguards KOSA would put in place,” said Mark Del Monte, chief executive officer of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “This robust support for KOSA across nearly every category of public opinion further underscores that now is the time for Congress to act.”
KOSA was introduced earlier this year by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). The bill was voted unanimously out of the Senate Commerce Committee in July, and has nearly fifty cosponsors from members of both parties. KOSA is currently awaiting a full vote in the Senate.
Fairplay, formerly known as Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, educates the public about commercialism's impact on kids' wellbeing and advocates for the end of child-targeted marketing. Fairplay organizes parents to hold corporations accountable for their marketing practices, advocates for policies to protect kids, and works with parents and professionals to reduce children's screen time.
LATEST NEWS
New Research Details How Israel Has Used US Weapons to Commit War Crimes
The report from Amnesty International USA comes ahead of a May 8 deadline for the Biden administration to certify that Israel is complying with international and domestic laws.
Apr 30, 2024
With just over a week until the deadline for the Biden administration to certify that Israel's use of U.S.-supplied weapons is adhering to domestic and international law, Amnesty International USA submitted a report to the federal government detailing how American bombs and other weapons have been used in Israeli attacks that could constitute war crimes.
The White House, said the human rights group, must inform Congress that Israel is violating humanitarian laws by May 8 as part of the National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability with Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services (NSM-20) process, and "must immediately suspend the transfer of arms to the Israeli government."
Amnesty's report focuses on several attacks on civilian infrastructure in which Israel used bombs and other weapons made by U.S. companies including Boeing, as well as practices used by the Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since they began bombarding Gaza in October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Four of the IDF attacks took place in Rafah, where Israel is reportedly preparing a ground offensive after forcibly displacing more than 1 million Palestinians to the southern city and carrying out airstrikes for months.
The four strikes in December and January killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children, despite the U.S. and Israel's repeated claims that the IDF is targeting Hamas fighters.
"The evidence is clear and overwhelming: the government of Israel is using U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy."
"In all four attacks," reported Amnesty, "there was no indication that the residential buildings hit could be considered legitimate military objectives or that people in the buildings were military targets, raising concerns that these strikes were direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and must therefore be investigated as war crimes."
The strikes, which included one on a five-story building inhabited by the Nofal family, were carried out with GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs—made in the U.S. by Boeing.
"The evidence is clear and overwhelming: the government of Israel is using U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy," said Amanda Klasing, national director for government relations with Amnesty International USA. "In order to follow U.S. laws and policies, the United States must immediately suspend any transfer of arms to the government of Israel."
Boeing was also the manufacturer of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) that were used in October 2023 in "two deadly, unlawful airstrikes on homes full of Palestinian civilians," according to satellite imagery examined by Amnesty's weapons experts and remote sensing analysts.
Those attacks killed 43 civilians, nearly half of whom were children.
Other patterns in Israel's assault on Gaza, including its use of a 24-hour mass evacuation notice early on in its current escalation, ordering more than 1.1 million people in Gaza City and northern Gaza to go to the southern part of the enclave; its use of indiscriminate attacks with both U.S.- and Israel-made weapons; its use of arbitrary "administrative detention"; and its denial of humanitarian assistance, all show that the Biden administration's continued material support for the IDF violates U.S. and international law, Amnesty said.
As progressives in the U.S. Congress have warned, Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2378-1) bars the federal government from providing military aid to any country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's announcement on October 9, 2023 of a "complete siege on Gaza" with "no electricity, no food, no water, no gas" allowed in has deprived the enclave of equipment needed to provide healthcare to tens of thousands of people wounded in Israel's attacks, as well as pregnant women and newborns, the elderly, and people facing chronic illnesses. It has also placed Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians at risk of a "government-engineered famine," said Amnesty, with dozens of people, including children, already having starved to death.
"It's shocking that the Biden administration continues to hold that the government of Israel is not violating international humanitarian law with U.S.-provided weapons when our research shows otherwise and international law experts disagree," said Klasing. "The International Court of Justice found the risk of genocide in Gaza is plausible and ordered provisional measures. President [Joe] Biden must end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel's grave violations of international law and immediately suspend the transfer of weapons to the government of Israel."
The report comes days after Biden signed a military aid package including $17 billion more for the IDF, after approving multiple weapons transfers to Israel since October.
Ahead of the May 8 NSM-20 deadline, a coalition of more than 90 lawyers—including at least 20 who work in the Biden administration—is preparing to send a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland warning that Israel's practices in Gaza likely violate the Arms Export Control Act, the Leahy Laws, and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit disproportionate attacks on civilians.
While spokespeople for the Biden administration have repeatedly said publicly that the White House does not accept allegations that Israel has violated international humanitarian law—and made the U.S. complicit—the letter is just the latest sign of widening dissent within the government regarding Gaza.
Senior U.S. officials recently told Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an internal memo that Israel lacks credibility as it continues to claim it is adhering international law.
"This is a moment where the U.S. government is violating its own laws and policy," a Department of Justice staffer who signed the new letter, toldPolitico. "The administration may be seeing silence or only a handful of resignations, but they are really not aware of the magnitude of discontent and dissent among the rank and file."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Judge Fines Trump $9K, Warns of 'Incarceratory Punishment' for Next Gag Order Violation
The former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee is on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals.
Apr 30, 2024
The New York judge presiding over former U.S. President Donald Trump's trial for allegedly falsifying business records on Tuesday held the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee in criminal contempt for repeatedly violating a gag order, fined him $9,000, and threatened to jail him if he does it again.
Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump to pay $1,000 for each violation of the gag order and directed him to remove eight offending social media posts.
"Defendant violated the order by making social media posts about known witnesses pertaining to their participation in this criminal proceeding and by making public statements about jurors in this criminal proceeding," Merchan wrote in his 8-page decision.
Trump is "hereby warned that the court will not tolerate continued willfull violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment," the judge added.
Trump faces 34 felony charges for falsifying records related to alleged hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle.
Overall, Trump is charged with 88 federal and state felonies related to this case and three others that stem from interfering with and trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and mishandling classified documents.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Columbia Students Occupy Historic Campus Building, Renaming It After Child Killed by IDF
"Students and community members are risking suspension and arrest to end the true state of emergency on campus, Columbia's complicity in the genocide in Gaza."
Apr 30, 2024
Pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University early Tuesday occupied a campus building with a long history of anti-war and anti-apartheid demonstrations, storming the hall and renaming it after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza earlier this year.
Video footage shows dozens of students celebrating as other protesters who entered Hamilton Hall unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall," in honor of 6-year-old Hind Rajab.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student-led advocacy group, said in a statement following the takeover that Columbia's leadership "forced protesters to escalate by contributing to a genocide while refusing to follow baseline standards of conduct that make negotiation possible."
"We call on the press and members of the public to hold Columbia accountable for any disproportionate response to students' actions today," the statement continued. "To Columbia's administrators and trustees: Do not incite another Kent or Jackson State by bringing soldiers and police officers with weapons onto our campus. Students' blood will be on your hands."
Taking over Hamilton Hall as done in 1968, Columbia students unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall," in reference to Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces.
Hundreds of students cheer as the banner is revealed, erupting into chants to "Free Palestine." pic.twitter.com/Oi8WgdZmqf
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) April 30, 2024
The occupation came after Columbia began suspending students who refused to leave their pro-Palestinian encampment by administrators' Monday deadline of 2:00 pm ET. Columbia and other universities across the U.S. are facing growing backlash for violently cracking down on demonstrations calling on the schools to divest from companies profiting off Israel's assault on Gaza.
The Associated Press reported that Columbia students on Tuesday morning "locked arms in front of Hamilton Hall" and "carried furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus."
Following the takeover, Columbia limited campus access to students and essential employees, barring members of the press from entering to cover the ongoing demonstrations.
CUAD said Tuesday that students intend to "remain at Hind's Hall until Columbia concedes" to organizers' "three demands: divestment, financial transparency, and amnesty."
"Students and community members are risking suspension and arrest to end the true state of emergency on campus, Columbia's complicity in the genocide in Gaza," the group added. "Taking back our own campus is the only and last response to an institution that obeys neither its own 'rules' nor ethical mandates."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular