Testimony

Written Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearing on "Protecting Our Children Online"

Feb 2023 🇺🇸 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee

On February 14, 2023, Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, submitted written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on protecting children online. He told the committee that platform design choices — engagement-maximizing algorithms and largely unregulated data collection — are associated with a range of harms to children and teens, naming compulsive overuse, exposure to age-inappropriate content, cyberbullying, and mental-health strain among the problems he linked to the current business model. Golin argued voluntary industry self-regulation has not been sufficient and urged Congress to pass comprehensive legislation, including the Kids Online Safety Act and an updated children's privacy law, requiring safety-by-design standards. He cited Fairplay's own advocacy record — a 2018 FTC complaint against Google's YouTube and the 2021 campaign that led Meta to pause a planned Instagram product for children — as evidence that sustained outside pressure, not company goodwill, drives change.

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CITATION

Golin, Josh. Written Testimony of Josh Golin, Executive Director, Fairplay, Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearing on "Protecting Our Children Online." February 14, 2023. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023-02-14%20-%20Testimony%20-%20Golin.pdf

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