The Kids Online Safety Act was a good start, but app stores need accountability too
On Sunday, in The Hill, I wrote with Michael Toscano and Adam Candeub on why app stores need to be regulated to better protect children online. Parental consent laws for social media passed in the states and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) passed by the Senate all importantly seek to regulate social media platforms to protect kids from digital harms, but app stores should not be overlooked for their role in the problem too. We write:
“But it is also critical to recognize that the platforms are not solely responsible for supplying their own dangerous commodities. Other Silicon Valley corporations are also profiting — beyond one’s wildest dreams — from being the distributors of these addictive products: namely, smartphone manufacturers and their app stores.
Currently, smartphones and app stores function as the gateway between young users and harmful content. They control access to millions of apps and digital services yet fail to effectively restrict minors from inappropriate material or engaging in exploitative contracts with powerful corporations. To break the hold of these platforms on our kids, app store regulation is critical.” Read the full piece on The Hill.
The most blame, I think, lies on the originators of evil - porn sites, the predatory gaming companies and even those that present themselves as "therapy" companies to get your money. Smartphone makers do have a problem, though, in that they often ship their devices with unnecessary apps in the system partition where they can never be truly deleted.
Many smartphones come with Facebook, at least, baked into their OS. And of course, apps for the smartphone company's own tracking partners who make money on your data. Plenty of smartphones come with an app that's called by the manufacturer name or original carrier name which will automatically download apps and games which you never asked for. I think that the children's protectors need to partner with privacy advocates on this issue, because privacy advocates have been unhappy about this issue with software bloat for years now, and we could probably figure out a bill to keep social media apps from being system apps.
There is a bit of a divide between us and some privacy advocates who think that minor age protections are "government invasions of privacy," but on the issue of system-level apps and app stores, I think we could easily get along.
It's a great article, Clare! We have to keep the pressure on in all layers of the stack.