Biden administration urges tech companies to step up child safety efforts

It comes as federal and state lawmakers have struggled to implement new safeguards for children online through legislation, drawing opposition from tech industry groups who argue those efforts infringe on free speech and would force companies to collect more data on users.

“The task force is calling on industry to step up,” Assistant Secretary of Commerce Alan Davidson, who co-chaired the group, said in an interview. “We have agencies from across the government agreeing here that what the industry has done as a whole so far is not sufficient.”

The report calls on tech companies to restrict features that seek to maximize engagement by young users, such as notifications that nudge users to keep interacting with their platforms and autoplay features that display content continuously.

The administration also recommends companies set more protective privacy settings for young users by default and limit features that encourage social comparisons, such as social media “likes.”

The scope of the report extends beyond social media, with the administration also urging action to curb “addictive” design features across mobile video games.

Alvaro Bedoya, a Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission who sat on the task force, said the report largely sidesteps debates about speech online and instead focuses on how “social media is designed to encourage young people to stay online longer than they want to be.”

While the recommendations are voluntary in nature, Bedoya said the report “carries a particular weight” because it represents various federal actors “speaking with one voice.”

The task force, led by the Commerce and Health and Human Services departments, included representatives from the FTC, Justice Department and the White House, among others.

Many of the recommendations mirror protections that lawmakers at the federal and state level have sought to establish through legislation.Courts have halted many of those state level efforts after legal challenges from tech industry groups.

Congressional efforts to expand safety and privacy protections online, meanwhile, have languished on Capitol Hill despite drawing broad bipartisan support.

“These guidelines ensure that no matter what happens in the courts, there’s a clear blueprint for how to prevent some of the worst harms that are coming from social media,” Bedoya said.

In addition to the recommendations for tech companies, the report offers advice for how parents and caregivers can best protect kids while using digital platforms and outlines what additional research is needed to understand the link between harms to children and their online activity. The report also urges Congress to pass legislation to tackle the issue, as Biden has previously called for.

Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, the HHS assistant secretary for mental health and substance use, said the report would help families develop plans around their children’s social media use and set up “screen-free activities.”

“We did focus groups all over the country and families and caregivers talked about just the interest and the need for more support and resources to be able to help navigate and work with their young folks around social media,” she said.