The Stop Harms from Addictive Social Media Act, or SHASM, is being proposed in the Commonwealth. The measure aims to protect children from addictive design and predatory data collection on social media platforms.
Officials with the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Public Policy said the act would work off data collection and age estimation systems social media platforms already have in place as opposed to requiring age verification from users.
Representative Matt Lockett said the act is a work in progress.
“I've shared this with some of our friends at Apple, Google, and Meta that we are interested in feedback. We want feedback. We don't believe that we've got the perfect answer at this point. We think this is a great place to continue talking and so we want to do that,” said Lockett.
Unlike other bills, which have focused on restricting certain types of content, SHASM is content neutral, instead addressing the addictive technological aspects of social media. Chelsea Youman, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Public Policy, said these platforms shouldn’t be making a profit from children’s information.
“Our children’s minds are not commodities, and behind access to social media is massive amounts of data mining off of our children. Social media platforms are in a data arms race, and our information is their commodity,” said Youman.
Youman said the proposed piece of legislation would require platforms to regularly refine their age estimation for users. SHASM removes a platform’s ability to commoditize children’s data by designating a child’s online behavior and communications as personal information which corporations cannot exploit for profit. The bill would also prohibit social media platforms from showing targeted commercial advertising to kids’ accounts.