The push is being led in part by parents who say the risks of social media extend far beyond screen time and online bullying. Samuel Chapman, chief executive of Parent Collective Inc., has become an advocate for stronger social media safeguards after the death of his 16-year-old son, Sammy.

Chapman has said there were no obvious warning signs before his son died. Like many parents, he believed the greatest dangers facing his child were the visible ones — unsafe driving, street drugs or encounters with strangers outside the home. He said he stayed involved, asked questions and tried to set boundaries.

But the threat that reached his family came through a social media app. According to Chapman, a drug dealer contacted Sammy through Snapchat and delivered a counterfeit pill to the family’s home after the parents had gone to sleep. The pill contained a fatal amount of fentanyl.

His story underscores a concern increasingly shared by parents across California, including in Southern California and the Inland Empire: social media platforms give young teenagers access to fast, private and sometimes anonymous communication systems that can be difficult for adults to monitor.

Those tools can help young people stay connected, but advocates for tighter regulation say they also expose children to dangers they may not be mature enough to recognize or manage.

State lawmakers are considering Assembly Bill 1709, authored by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, which would bar children under 16 from creating or keeping accounts on social media platforms that use addictive features. The measure would place enforcement responsibility on the platforms rather than on parents.

Supporters describe the bill as a preventive step rather than a broad restriction on internet access. The proposal would not block children from going online or looking up information. Instead, it would delay their participation in account-based social media systems that rely on personalized feeds, private messaging and engagement-driven design until they are older.

Advocates compare the approach to existing age-based safeguards for driving, alcohol, gambling and firearms, arguing that certain products carry risks that require clear limits for minors.

Parents have long been told that online dangers can be managed through privacy settings, better algorithms or close supervision at home. But critics of the current system say many platforms are built in ways that make meaningful supervision difficult, especially when private messaging, recommendations and easy contact with strangers are central features.

They also argue that the companies behind these platforms benefit financially from keeping users engaged for as long as possible, including young users.

Concerns about children’s mental health have added urgency to the debate. The U.S. Surgeon General has reported that young people who spend more than three hours a day on social media face about twice the risk of symptoms associated with depression and anxiety. Other research has linked heavy social media use among adolescents to increased depressive symptoms, poorer well-being, anxiety, loneliness and lower self-esteem.

Supporters of AB 1709 say the bill does not punish teenagers or impose fines on parents. Instead, they argue, it holds technology companies accountable for the products they design and profit from.

The measure also includes oversight provisions intended to allow the law to adjust as technology and platform features change.

California has frequently positioned itself as a national leader in consumer protection and child safety. Backers of AB 1709 say the state now has an opportunity to set clearer rules for social media platforms used by children, particularly as families continue to grapple with the consequences of online access that can move faster than parental oversight.

Original source: CalMatters

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Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed Senate Bill 976 by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, which prohibits online platforms from knowingly providing an addictive feed to minors without parental consent. The law also stops social media platforms from sending notifications to minors during school hours and late at night — from midnight to 6 a.m. — while they sleep.

By Jan. 1, 2027, social media companies will have an obligation to know the age of their users and implement the requirements under SB 976, making children much safer on social media.

This law will save countless lives here in California, like our eternally 16-year-old son Sammy, who had a drug dealer driven to him by the algorithms on Snapchat, delivering a lethal dose of fentanyl to him like a pizza, after we were asleep. This law will help stop dangerous content from invading our homes through our children’s devices, help our kids pay better attention in school and get more sleep at night.

Although, like California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act passed two years ago, SB 976 will surely be challenged by the powerful lobbying groups funded by tech companies. It could be tied up in court for years.

Challenges to the law will likely be along the lines of a First Amendment violation or the oft-mentioned Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which essentially treats the internet like a blackboard. You can’t sue a blackboard for what someone writes on it, but the internet is far from whatever blackboard it may have resembled in 1996.

A recent ruling in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that artificial intelligence and the algorithms they direct are not human speech and therefore not protected by the Constitution. It’s time for Congress to amend Section 230 and treat the social media industry like any other industry in our country, allowing parents like me to sue for negligence when our children die with the help of repeated social media messages inducing harm or pushing them toward illegal activities.

Harms such as suicide baiting, human trafficking, dangerous challenges like the “choking game,” and drug and firearm sales to minors will be minimized on social media thanks to SB 976, ultimately making California safer for our youth.

Its necessary sister bill, Assembly Bill 3216, authored by Assemblymember Josh Hoover and three others, was also just signed by our governor. School districts will be required to adopt a policy to limit or ban phones on school campuses by July 1, 2026, except in emergencies or with teacher permission as part of a lesson plan.

Smartphones turn into an addiction for many children. They check them incessantly, fidgeting with them in class when the teachers aren’t looking and easily miss important information. Grades may even improve if attention spans can return to normal.

Taken altogether, we can hope to see students more focused at school, learning more and feeling less anxious.

California has long been a leader in technology but that also makes it home to companies that helped create these dangers. Now the state can lead the way in cleaning up the mess we’ve made, helping keep other families from feeling the endless sorrow ours feels from the loss of our son.

Let’s hope these protections catch on around the country. Hopefully, as we say here: As California goes, so goes the nation.

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The incident in Riverside is the latest in a rash of threats plaguing California schools in recent weeks, prompting police investigations, school lockdowns and arrests of suspects as young as 11. Over the last week, authorities have also investigated non-credible threats at schools in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties.

In Riverside, where a student was recently for allegedly making threats at Arlington High School, police said another incident happened Friday at Chemawa Middle School.

“This caused significant concern among parents, prompting many to withdraw their children early due to safety fears,” the department wrote on Facebook. “Our school resource officers promptly launched an investigation to trace the origin of this threat and ensure the safety of the school community.”

Police said tips rolled in over the weekend concerning a student believed to be responsible for the threat. On Tuesday, the school resource officer identified a 13-year-old girl as the alleged culprit. She is accused of posting a threat on social media, followed by a second post naming “targeted classmates.”

According to investigators, a search of the girl’s home confirmed she had no access to weapons. She was booked into a juvenile detention facility on suspicion of making criminal threats. Following the arrest, police leaders reiterated the serious consequences of making any kind of threat, even if it turns out to be a hoax.

“These recent disruptions to our schools must stop immediately so that our children can focus on their education,” said Larry Gonzalez, Riverside’s police chief. “Students who make threats of school violence on social media or by other means will face strict criminal consequences and severe disciplinary action, up to and including expulsion. We will not tolerate any behavior that undermines the safety and security of our schools.”

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It’s a rare issue that can bring 41 states together for a bipartisan fight. This week, state attorneys general across the political spectrum joined forces in suing Facebook parent company Meta for allegedly using features on Instagram and other platforms that hook young users, while denying or downplaying the risks to their mental health.

This comes two years after states began investigating Meta following revelations that the company’s internal research found Instagram was having a negative effect on some teen users’ mental health. Since then health professionals, including Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and the American Psychological Assn., have urged tech companies to make their products safer for young people.

But there hasn’t yet been significant change in the industry. Most companies haven’t been willing to overhaul their platforms to curb addictive features or harmful content for users under 18 years old, such as setting time limits on their apps or changing algorithms that steer kids into “rabbit holes” to keep them online. Nor have federal lawmakers been able to enact comprehensive product safety regulations because legislation has stalled in Congress or been blocked by courts.

In the absence of policy changes, lawsuits are the next logical step in prodding technology companies to ensure their products are safe for young people or be held accountable. Some have compared the states’ legal strategy to lawsuits against Big Tobacco and opioid manufacturers that revealed how the companies lied about the harm caused by their products, and forced them to change their business practices.

Meta is the first target because of the 2021 revelations, but the state attorneys general said this is an industry-wide investigation. They have also begun looking into TikTok.

The federal complaint alleges Meta used harmful and “psychologically manipulative product features,” such as “likes,” infinite scroll and constant alerts, to hook young people on Instagram and Facebook and keep them engaged for as much time as possible in order to boost profits. Despite knowing that young users’ brains are particularly vulnerable to manipulation by such features and internal studies warning that kids were being harmed, Meta allegedly concealed, denied and downplayed the harms.

The lawsuit, which was filed jointly by 33 states, including California, also accused Meta of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law that protects the digital privacy of children under 13 years old. Eight states and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits in state or federal courts, many alleging that Meta violated state consumer protection laws.

Meta said in a statement that it has already rolled out 30 tools to support teens on its apps since 2021, including reminders on Instagram for teens to take a break and sharing expert resources if kids search for posts on suicide or eating disorders. That’s a good start. The company lamented that the states chose to sue rather than work with tech firms “across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards.”

Indeed, there is a need for comprehensive safety standards across social media platforms. But a tech lobbying group of which Meta is a member has sued to stop an effort by California, which passed a first-in-the-nation law last year requiring age-appropriate design and child privacy protection. The law was recently put on hold by a federal judge citing 1st Amendment concerns. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed an appeal.

This is complex legal and regulatory terrain, and the states’ lawsuits are not a sure bet given existing laws that protect online platform companies from being held liable for content posted by users on their sites. Nor will any of these cases be resolved quickly. That’s OK. This is an essential fight for the future.

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California lawmakers on Friday killed a bill that would hold social media platforms liable for promoting harmful content about eating disorders, self-harm and drugs.

Senate Bill 680, which was opposed by tech companies, died in the powerful Assembly Appropriations Committee as part of a marathon hearing where lawmakers culled hundreds of bills without public debate.

“There is little doubt that social media platforms employ algorithms and design features that experts across the nation agree are contributing to harming our children,” Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), who wrote SB 680, said in a statement. “These companies have the power to adjust their platforms to limit this harm, yet to date we’ve seen them take no meaningful action.”

The death of the legislation underscores the uphill battle California lawmakers face as they try to make social media safer for young people. Tech industry organizations such as TechNet and NetChoice, whose members include Facebook parent company Meta, Snap and TikTok, aggressively lobbied against SB 680. Opponents said the bill would run afoul of federal law and the 1st Amendment because online platforms would end up removing more lawful speech as they err on the side of caution to avoid being sued.

Tech industry groups opposed a similar social media bill last year and are trying to block another by filing a lawsuit after it was signed into law.

California lawmakers, Skinner said, shouldn’t give up on their “fight to protect our kids.”

Another bill, Assembly Bill 1394, that focused more narrowly on combating child sexual abuse material on social media on Friday cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee and advanced to the Senate floor for consideration. The legislation would require social media companies to give California users a way to report child sexual abuse material they’re depicted in. The platform would be required to permanently block the material from being viewed. If the company failed to do so, it would be liable for damages.

“Ensuring children and teens have a safe experience online is a goal we share with the authors of SB 680 and AB 1394,” said Dylan Hoffman, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest. “Unfortunately, as drafted, SB 680, would have done little to protect children from harmful content and would have resulted in fewer online spaces for teens.”

Ahead of Friday’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, child safety advocates expressed outrage over the changes to AB 1394 being pushed by the tech industry. The amendments, backed by TechNet, would give online platforms another way to avoid liability for failing to combat child sexual abuse materials, according to children’s advocacy groups Common Sense Media and the Children’s Advocacy Institute.

“They are basically trying to keep a golden fence around tech companies in spite of evidence that proves that their products are deeply harming children,” said Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media in an interview before the hearing. “It is absolutely shameful and disgusting what they’re doing.”

On Wednesday, the child’s advocacy group called on TechNet’s members to leave the organization or denounce the group’s behavior.

TechNet President and CEO Linda Moore on Thursday sent a letter to Steyer, saying it was working in good faith with the bill’s author Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) to make changes to the bill because the legislation could be challenged in court.

The bill advanced without amendments but Wick’s office said potential changes are still being negotiated. AB 1394 also prohibits social media companies from “knowingly facilitating, aiding, or abetting commercial sexual exploitation.”

A court would be required to award damages between $1 million and $4 million for each act of exploitation that the social media platform “facilitated, aided, or abetted.” Companies would be able to avoid liability if they conducted quarterly audits of their designs, algorithms, features and practices and correct any potentially harmful impacts.

“I am confident that this bill will make it to the Governor’s desk and, when signed, will be the strongest law in the nation aimed at combating child sex abuse material,“ Wicks said in a statement.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Biden administration asked a federal appeals court Monday to temporarily block a lower court’s order limiting executive branch officials’ discussions with social media companies about controversial online posts.

The request for an emergency stay was filed at the 5th U.S. District Court of Appeals shortly after U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty rejected an administration motion that he put his own July 4 order on hold. The order came in a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, as well as a conservative website owner and four individual critics of government COVID-19 policies.

The lawsuit claimed the administration, in effect, censored free speech by using threats of regulatory action or protection while pressuring companies to remove what it deemed misinformation. COVID-19 vaccines, legal issues involving President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and election fraud allegations were among the topics spotlighted in the lawsuit.

Doughty was nominated to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump. His injunction blocked the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI and multiple other government agencies and administration officials from meeting with or contacting social media companies for the purpose of “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

Administration attorneys said in the motion filed at the 5th Circuit that Doughty’s ruling was too broad and vague, and had the potential to chill government officials’ speech on important matters. And they said Doughty failed to point to any evidence that the administration had made threats against social media companies to coerce them to take down posts.

“The district court identified no evidence suggesting that a threat accompanied any request for the removal of content. Indeed, the order denying the stay — presumably highlighting the ostensibly strongest evidence — referred to ‘a series of public media statements,’” the administration said.

They asked that the 5th Circuit block Doughty’s order while the case is pursued at the appeals court in New Orleans or, at minimum, grant a 10-day block of the order so the administration could prepare to go to the Supreme Court to seek a longer stay.

Earlier Monday, Doughty rejected administration requests that he stay his own order pending appeal.

“In essence,” Doughty’s Monday order said, “Defendants argue that the injunction should be stayed because it might interfere with the Government’s ability to continue working with social-media companies to censor Americans’ core political speech on the basis of viewpoint. In other words, the Government seeks a stay of the injunction so that it can continue violating the First Amendment.”

Government lawyers have argued that the companies control their own policies regarding misinformation and that the lawsuit casts officials’ comments on issues and policy as threats. The administration said Doughty’s July 4 order was unclear about who in the executive branch it covers and what they can or cannot say about important topics discussed on social media platforms.

The order could cause “grave harm” by preventing the government from “engaging in a vast range of lawful and responsible conduct,” government lawyers said in requesting the stay Thursday night.

Doughty order said the administration “seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’” The order, which was to remain in effect pending further arguments in Doughty’s court, was hailed by conservatives as a victory for free speech and a blow to censorship. But critics said the order and accompanying reasons, covering more than 160 pages, were broad, unclear and could chill government efforts to fight misinformation on important topics.

The criticisms were echoed in the government’s Thursday night request for a stay. “The potential breadth of the entities and employees covered by the injunction combined with the injunction’s sweeping substantive scope will chill a wide range of lawful government conduct relating to Defendants’ law enforcement responsibilities, obligations to protect the national security, and prerogative to speak on matters of public concern,” the government’s motion said.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs countered with a weekend filing opposing a stay. Among the arguments are that the July 4 injunction carves out exemptions allowing officials to contact social media companies about postings involving criminal activity or public safety threats; national security threats; election-related issues including voter suppression attempts, voting infrastructure threats and illegal campaign contributions; and saying officials can continue “exercising permissible public government speech promoting government policies or views on matters of public concern.”

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — From fire departments to governments, from school districts to corporations, from local utilities to grassroots organizers around the world, Twitter at its best is a tool to get a message out quickly, efficiently, directly.

It’s also a constant risk-and-reward calculation.

A recent bombshell whistleblower report from Twitter’s former head of security alleges that the social media company has been negligently lax on cybersecurity and privacy protections for its users for years. While worrisome for anyone on Twitter, the revelations could be especially concerning for those who use it to reach constituencies, get news out about emergencies and for political dissidents and activists in the crosshairs of hackers or their own governments.

“We tend to look at these companies as large, well-resourced entities who know what they’re doing — but you realize that a lot of their actions are ad hoc and reactive, driven by crises,” said Prateek Waghre, policy director at the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit in India. “Essentially, they’re often held together by cello tape or chewing gum.”

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who served as Twitter’s security chief until he was fired early this year, filed the complaints last month with federal U.S. authorities, alleging that the company misled regulators about its poor cybersecurity defenses and its negligence in attempting to root out fake accounts that spread disinformation. Among Zatko’s most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users.

Waghre said the allegations in the complaint about India — that Twitter knowingly allowed the Indian government to place its agents on the company payroll where they had “direct unsupervised access to the company’s systems and user data” — were particularly worrisome. He also pointed to an incident earlier this month where a former Twitter employee was found guilty of passing along sensitive user data to royal family members in Saudi Arabia in exchange for bribes.

The consequences of privacy and security lapses can range from inconvenience and embarrassment — such as when an Indiana State Police account was hacked and tweeted “poo-poo head” earlier this year — to much worse. In October 2021, a Saudi humanitarian aid worker was sentenced to 20 years in prison because of an anonymous, satirical Twitter account that the kingdom says he ran. It’s possible that the case is linked with the men accused of spying on behalf of the kingdom while working at Twitter.

As an advocate for dissidents and others detained in Saudi Arabia, Bethany Al-Haidari has been concerned for years about Twitter’s user privacy safeguards. The new whistleblower allegations make her all the more worried.

“Given what we know about how social media is used around the world, that is incredibly problematic,” said Al-Haidari, who works for The Freedom Initiative, a U.S.-based human rights group. The possibility of hackers or governments exploiting the alleged cybersecurity lapses at Twitter to get users’ identities, private messages or other personal information “is quite disturbing to me,” she said.

Chinese-Australian artist and activist Badiucao, who regularly publishes art that criticizes the Chinese Communist Party, expressed concern about the whistleblower’s allegations, noting that many users provide their phone numbers and emails to Twitter.

“Once that personal information is leaked, it could be used to trace your identity,” he said. Badiucao said he regularly receives death threats and propaganda from what appears to be bot or spam accounts.

But the artist plans to keep using Twitter, saying it’s probably the best option Chinese-speaking activists and artists have for a “shelter for free speech.”

Twitter says the whistleblower claims present a “false narrative” about the company and its privacy and data security practices, and that the claims lack context. “Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be,” the company said in a statement.

Despite the heightened concerns sparked by Zatko’s claims, none of the groups The Associated Press spoke to this week plan to stop using Twitter. Security experts say while the whistleblower’s claims are alarming, there’s no reason for individual users to delete their accounts.

High-profile Twitter users and world governments may be at greater risk than average users, experts say. In 2020, for instance, Twitter suffered an embarrassing hack by a teenager who accessed the accounts of former President Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Musk is currently embroiled in a battle with Twitter as he tries to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the company.

Yet another security incident raised alarms for Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University communications professor who follows Twitter closely. In 2017, a Twitter customer support worker deactivated then-President Donald Trump’s account for a few minutes during their last day on the job. While the account was restored quickly, Grygiel said, the incident showed how vulnerable Twitter was when it comes to governments, heads of state and military branches that use the platform.

“Am I surprised and shocked by the whistleblower’s allegations? I’m not,” said Trav Robertson, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, which uses Twitter to communicate with about 18,700 followers. But he argues that it’s especially important for people not to assume that “the constant attacks on our emails, our databases, our Twitter accounts, our Facebooks” are the new normal. “When we become desensitized to it, we fail to be proactive,” he said.

At the City of Denver’s fire department, public information officer JD Chism acknowledges concern over security issues. But the department has to weight that risk against the way Twitter has become integral to communicating emergencies to the public. The department’s Twitter feed hosts real-time updates on fires and consequent road closures and injuries, alongside retweets from other agencies warning of dangers such as flash floods.

For now, the department will keep using Twitter as it always has, Chism said, “It’s good for taking care of people, and that’s what we are here for.”

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Adam Sieff | Contributed

Assembly Bill 2408 proposes to punish popular social media platforms for editorial content promotion decisions. But it violates fundamental rights and must not become law.

If California passed a law exposing major newspaper publishers to liability for the selection, arrangement and promotion of articles they print, it would obviously violate the First Amendment. So why are some state lawmakers advancing Assembly Bill 2408 , which proposes precisely the same type of unconstitutional penalties for major internet publishers?

The bill is well-intended, and aims to promote the mental and emotional well-being of young people on the internet. But to achieve these worthy ends, AB 2408 proposes to punish popular social media platforms when their editorial content promotion decisions can be shown to “cause” young audiences to suffer injuries.

That proposal violates core speech rights, and legislators must not allow it to become law in its current form.

The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the First Amendment protects publishers’ decisions to select, arrange and promote content to audiences as a basic exercise of their editorial control and judgment. The protection applies regardless of the medium of communication publishers use to convey information, whether they run a newspaper, cable network, website or social network. And the court has expressly held that the amendment applies to online speech and content moderation practices.

Critically, the rule prevents California, or any state, from enacting a law that would penalize an internet publisher for exercising its judgment about what kinds of content to publish and promote to its audience, just as it prevents California from enacting a law punishing a newspaper for its decisions about what to print on the front page.

It makes no legal difference that social media platforms often create algorithms to apply their editorial judgments. An algorithm is just a set of pre-programmed editorial rules that reflects value judgments made by real people about the kind of content to display and promote.

To punish a platform’s algorithmic promotion of popular content is, as a constitutional matter, no different than punishing CalMatters for recommending stories to particular users based on their browsing and reading history. Nor, ultimately, is it any different from punishing a tabloid magazine for publishing prurient content on its front page.

The fact that AB 2408 endeavors to protect young audiences is also, from a legal perspective, irrelevant. The First Amendment prohibits the imposition of legal penalties that restrict the ideas to which certain audiences may be exposed, and the general exercise of editorial discretion cannot be suppressed solely to protect young people from content or ideas that a government censor considers unsuitable.

While one cannot deny that these are difficult times to be a young person, and few policies are more important than those that advance the health and prospects of future generations, AB 2408 is the wrong remedy. Permitting California to punish social media platforms’ editorial decisions, as the measure proposes, would equally permit governments to punish newspapers and magazines, as well as authors of “choose-your-own-adventure” stories, video games and, arguably, any kind of literature if a plaintiff could establish injuries suffered from those authors’ editorial choices — a prospect the Supreme Court rejected in 2011, the last time California attempted to restrict the publication of content to young audiences (in that instance, video games).

There are better ways to achieve AB 2408’s goals that are consistent with the First Amendment values that define our open society. Earlier concerns over new forms of unsettling but constitutionally protected media, including comic books, movies, rock music, cable programming and video games, offer instruction.

After courts rejected attempts like AB 2408 to punish the publishers of these different types of content, governments, publishers, schools and civil society groups came together to develop rating systems, parental controls and public information campaigns to allow families to make informed choices about their media consumption.

The constitutionally required solution to concerns over new forms of speech, in other words, is more speech, not less. California’s lawmakers should embrace that approach and reject AB 2408, at least as written today.

• DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of a Senate panel examining social media’s negative effects on young people has dismissed as “a public relations tactic” some safety measures announced by Facebook’s popular Instagram platform.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, on Wednesday faced off with senators angry over revelations of how the photo-sharing platform can harm some young users and demanding that the company commit to making changes.

Under sharp questioning by senators of both parties, Mosseri defended the company’s conduct and the efficacy of its new safety measures. He challenged the assertion that Instagram has been shown by research to be addictive for young people. Instagram has an estimated 1 billion users of all ages.

On Tuesday, Instagram introduced a previously announced feature that urges teenagers to take breaks from the platform. The company also announced other tools, including parental controls due to come out early next year, that it says are aimed at protecting young users from harmful content.

The parental oversight tools “could have been announced years ago,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Mosseri. The newly announced measures fall short and many of them are still being tested, he said.

A pause that Instagram imposed in September on its work on a kids’ version of the platform “looks more like a public relations tactic brought on by our hearings,” Blumenthal said.

“I believe that the time for self-policing and self-regulation is over,” said Blumenthal. “Self-policing depends on trust. Trust is over.”

Mosseri testified as Facebook, whose parent now is named Meta Platforms, has been roiled by public and political outrage over the disclosures by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen. She has made the case before lawmakers in the U.S., Britain and Europe that Facebook’s systems amplify online hate and extremism and that the company elevates profits over the safety of users.

Haugen, a data scientist who had worked in Facebook’s civic integrity unit, buttressed her assertions with a trove of internal company documents she secretly copied and provided to federal securities regulators and Congress.

The Senate panel has examined Facebook’s use of information from its own researchers that could indicate potential harm for some of its young users, especially girls, while it publicly downplayed the negative impacts. For some Instagram-devoted teens, peer pressure generated by the visually focused app led to mental-health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts, the research detailed in the Facebook documents showed.

The revelations in a report by The Wall Street Journal, based on the documents leaked by Haugen, set off a wave of recriminations from lawmakers, critics of Big Tech, child-development experts and parents.

“As Head of Instagram, I am especially focused on the safety of the youngest people who use our services,” Mosseri testified. “This work includes keeping underage users off our platform, designing age-appropriate experiences for people ages 13 to 18, and building parental controls. Instagram is built for people 13 and older. If a child is under the age of 13, they are not permitted on Instagram.”

Mosseri outlined the suite of measures he said Instagram has taken to protect young people on the platform. They include keeping kids under 13 off it, restricting direct messaging between kids and adults, and prohibiting posts that encourage suicide and self-harm.

But, as researchers both internal and external to Meta have documented, the reality is different. Kids under 13 often sign up for Instagram with or without their parents’ knowledge by lying about their age. And posts about suicide and self-harm still reach children and teens, sometimes with disastrous effects.

Senators of both parties were united in condemnation of the social network giant and Instagram, the photo-sharing juggernaut valued at some $100 billion that Facebook acquired for $1 billion in 2012.

Already in July, Facebook said it was working with parents, experts and policymakers when it introduced safety measures for teens on Instagram. In fact, the company has been working with experts and other advisers for another product aimed at children — its Messenger Kids app that launched in late 2017.

Senators pressed Mosseri to support legislative remedies for social media.

Among the legislative proposals put forward by Blumenthal and others, one bill proposes an “eraser button” that would let parents instantly delete all personal information collected from their children or teens.

Another proposal bans specific features for kids under 16, such as video auto-play, push alerts, “like” buttons and follower counts. Also being floated is a prohibition against collecting personal data from anyone aged 13 to 15 without their consent. And a new digital “bill of rights” for minors that would similarly limit gathering of personal data from teens.

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“Facebook wants you to get caught up in a long, drawn out debate over the minutiae of different legislative approaches. Please don’t fall into that trap,” Haugen testified at a hearing by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. “Time is of the essence. There is a lot at stake here. You have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create new rules for our online world. I came forward, at great personal risk, because I believe we still have time to act. But we must act now.”

Lawmakers brought forward proposals after Haugen presented a case in October that Facebook’s systems amplify online hate and extremism and fail to protect young users from harmful content.

Her previous disclosures have energized legislative and regulatory efforts around the world aimed at cracking down on Big Tech, and she made a series of appearances recently before European lawmakers and officials who are drawing up rules for social media companies.

Haugen, a data scientist who worked as a product manager in Facebook’s civic integrity unit, buttressed her assertions with a massive trove of internal company documents she secretly copied and provided to federal securities regulators and Congress.

When she made her first public appearance this fall, laying out a far-reaching condemnation of the social network giant before a Senate Commerce subcommittee, she shared how she believes Facebook’s platforms could be made safer and offered prescriptions for action by Congress. She rejected the idea of breaking up the tech giant as many lawmakers are calling for, favoring instead targeted legislative remedies.

Most notably, they include new curbs on the long-standing legal protections for speech posted on social media platforms. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for stripping away some of the protections granted by a provision in a 25-year-old law — generally known as Section 230 — that shields internet companies from liability for what users post.

“Let’s work together on bipartisan legislation because we can’t continue to wait,” said Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., the chairman of the communications and technology subcommittee. The tech giants want nothing more than partisan division and dithering over the legislation, he said.

Facebook and other social media companies use computer algorithms to rank and recommend content. They govern what shows up on users’ news feeds. Haugen’s idea is to remove the protections in cases where dominant content driven by algorithms favors massive engagement by users over public safety.

“Facebook will not change until the incentives change,” Haugen told the House panel. “I hope that you guys act because our children deserve much better.”

That’s the thought behind the Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act, which was introduced by senior House Democrats about a week after Haugen testified to the Senate panel in October. The bill would hold social media companies responsible by removing their protection under Section 230 for tailored recommendations to users that are deemed to cause harm. A platform would lose the immunity in cases where it “knowingly or recklessly” promoted harmful content.

Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who heads the full Energy and Commerce committee, said a proposal from its senior Republican, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, isn’t identical to the Democrats’ bill but represents a good start for potential compromise.

“Big Tech should not be the arbiter of truth,” Rodgers said, renewing conservatives’ assertions that social media platforms censor those viewpoints. Rodgers’ proposal would allow conservatives to challenge the platforms’ content decisions.

All of the legislative proposals face a heavy lift toward final enactment by Congress. Some experts who support stricter regulation of social media say the Democrats’ legislation as written could have unintended consequences. It doesn’t make clear enough which specific algorithmic behaviors would lead to loss of the liability protection, they suggest, making it hard to see how it would work in practice and leading to wide disagreement over what it might actually do.

Meta Platforms, the new name of Facebook’s parent company, has declined to comment on specific legislative proposals. The company says it has long advocated for updated regulations.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has suggested changes that would only give internet platforms legal protection if they can prove that their systems for identifying illegal content are up to snuff. That requirement, however, might be more difficult for smaller tech companies and startups to meet, leading critics to charge that it would ultimately favor Facebook.

Other social media companies have urged caution in any legislative changes to Section 230.

MARCY GORDON | AP News

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