State of the Union 2023: Tech industry praises Biden push for teenager privacy protections

Representatives of the tech industry supported President Joe Biden’s push for additional privacy legislation in the State of the Union address, which reflects growing concerns among parents about teenage access to social media.

Biden said that he would press for additional laws to place restrictions on the data gathered from children and teenagers by Big Tech as part of an effort to promote improved mental health. Members of tech advocacy praised his statements.

“We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit,” Biden said. “And it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.”

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“Now’s the time for the President and Congress to come together and finally get a federal privacy law across the finish line,” TechNet CEO Linda Moore said in a statement. TechNet represents several of the larger tech firms, including Apple, eBay, Google, and Meta.

Morgan Reed, president of the App Association, praised the emphasis on privacy over the push by some Democrats for antitrust legislation. “The President has recognized the need for privacy laws to be put in place; any talk of antitrust legislation is premature until that happens,” Reed said in a statement. “If not, Congress will simply be playing musical chairs with entrenched tech businesses.”

Steve DelBianco, CEO of the more conservative tech lobbying group NetChoice, said the federal government should be the one to implement such regulations. “When it comes to keeping kids safe online, parents and guardians — not policymakers — are in the best position to decide what’s right for their families,” DelBianco said. “Biden should encourage education and empowerment rather than more government control.”

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Bipartisan legislation reflecting Biden’s speech has been presented in Congress in the past. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wrote the Kids Online Safety Act, which would force platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to turn on the highest privacy features for underage users by default. While the bill was proposed in the final months of the last term, it failed to gain momentum in the Senate.