WASHINGTON — Panelists at a tech-sponsored conference held here this week defended the industry against allegations that its products are harming children and warned of government overreach, as social media regulations in states and countries increase in response to mental health concerns.
Speakers rejected comparisons between Big Tech and Big Tobacco and derided the notion that tech products are creating an “anxious generation.”
“We want to protect kids on the internet, not from the internet,” said Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, an industry membership-based children’s online safety nonprofit that hosted the conference.
Conference sponsors included Amazon, EPIC Games, Google, Roblox, Snap and TikTok.
The industry’s counteroffensive is a response to backlash over the number of hours per day teenagers spend online, addictive design features, an epidemic of online sexual exploitation of children, and concerns about growing rates of anxiety, depression and suicide among youth.
The issue has galvanized policymakers from both parties. The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the Kids Online Safety Act in July, but that bill has stalled in the House. This week, Trump adviser and X owner Elon Musk encouraged Congress to pass a revised version of the bill.
State lawmakers frustrated by congressional stasis have led the charge to limit teen access to social media and to force companies to design safer, non-addictive products. The tech industry has sued to overturn several of those laws and won a series of preliminary injunctions. States and school districts have filed their own lawsuits against social media titans alleging harms to minors.
Online regulators in other countries are also cracking down. Australia last month became the first country to pass a law barring those under 16 from social media.
Speakers at the conference warned of policymakers’ overreaction and cautioned against drawing a direct correlation between declining youth mental health and social media use.
Balkam criticized New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose book “The Anxious Generation” has become a national bestseller and is prodding policymakers and school officials to act, including by instituting bans on phones in school. Balkam called the book’s methodology, which links higher rates of youth anxiety to tech use, “dubious” and said it resonated with policymakers “looking for a culprit and an easy answer.”
The Family Online Safety Institute released a Google-funded research report to coincide with the conference. Based on surveys and focus groups across three countries, the report sought to offer a more nuanced view of tech’s role in kids’ lives.
It found that teens in the United States, Brazil and Germany reported having more positive than negative experiences online; that teens and parents view digital wellbeing as mostly a family responsibility, although they would like to see companies do more to promote wellbeing; and found less support for government regulation.
“A teen’s relationship with their digital life or their device is incredibly nuanced,” said Amanda Ferguson, a researcher at the University of Cambridge who reviewed the survey and participated in an expert panel to discuss the findings.
The industry has also responded to the criticism with an increasing number of parental control tools, screen time limits, and privacy by default measures. Meta recently rolled out Instagram teen accounts.
At the conference, more than one speaker called on companies to work together to harmonize their privacy and parental controls to make it easier for parents to manage their kids’ digital lives.
“You can and must do better,” Balkam told the conference attendees, with many of them working in their companies’ “Kids and Family” or “Trust and Safety” divisions.
A panel of online regulators from Australia, England and France urged a “safety by design” approach to building online products for youth, including new immersive technologies such as virtual reality. Gill Whitehead, who chairs the Global Online Safety Regulators Network, said regulations should require companies to conduct product risk assessments and mandate transparency.
Lawmakers in California and Maryland have embraced that approach, passing Age-Appropriate Design Code laws modeled on regulations in the United Kingdom. The laws require companies to design products that are likely to be used by kids with their best interests in mind. A court injunction placed California’s law on hold.
California and New York this year passed first-in-the-nation laws to ban addictive feeds for kids unless their parents allow otherwise. Several Republican-led states have enacted laws requiring parental permission for kids to have a social media account.
The tech industry, led by trade group NetChoice, has countered with lawsuits that have successfully blocked many of the laws from going into effect.
A key point of contention is whether it is constitutional for states to require that online platforms determine a user’s age. So-called age verification or age assurance is a key component of state laws that bar addictive feeds or require companies to get a parent’s permission before allowing a teen to open an account.
A panelist from Google, which operates YouTube, acknowledged that when the company knows that a user is a minor, “they are given a different experience.”
But industry and civil libertarians have challenged government mandates to ascertain ages as privacy invasive and unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide a challenge to a Texas law that requires adult content sites to determine a user’s age before giving them access.
Efforts to restrict teen access to social media face pushback not only from the industry, but also from some youth advocates. Casey Pick with the Trevor Project, which provides suicide prevention and crisis support for LGBTQ youth, said that while gay, lesbian and transgender teens face more bullying and harassment online than their peers, they also almost universally report finding accepting communities.
Pick said during a breakout session on online safety policies that they’re “afraid of losing that community.”
Despite an uncertain legal landscape, state lawmakers show no sign of backing down.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D) announced Monday legislation for the 2025 session that would require warning labels on social media, something U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has urged.
New York Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D), who authored the addictive social media feeds law that was passed this year, has introduced a bill for 2025 that targets gaming platforms.
Gus Rossi, a director with the philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network, compared online safety regulations to seatbelts and airbags in cars. But he said the tech industry’s “unlimited lobbying power” makes it “exponentially hard” to regulate the industry.
“We are seeing the consequences of an unbalanced marketplace,” Rossi said during a panel discussion at the conference. “Something needs to give, and something needs to happen.”