Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Cynthia Lummis introduced a bill Thursday to establish research into social media addiction and how to prevent it.
Their hope with the Nudging Users to Drive Good Experiences on Social Media Act is to develop recommendations based in science to prevent addiction. The bill directs the National Science Foundation and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to research such interventions.
Then, the law would hold platforms accountable for following up on said recommendations. The Federal Trade Commission would become the enforcer of the new regulations.
SOCIAL MEDIA BECOMES LESS ANTI-SOCIAL
“By empowering the National Science Foundation and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study the addictiveness of social media platforms, we’ll begin to fully understand the impact the designs of these platforms and their algorithms have on our society,” Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, said in a statement. “From there, we can build guardrails to protect children in Wyoming from the negative effects of social media.”
“For too long, tech companies have said, ‘Trust us, we’ve got this.’ But we know that social media platforms have repeatedly put profits over people, with algorithms pushing dangerous content that hooks users and spreads misinformation,” Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said in her statement. “This bill will help address these practices, including by implementing changes that increase transparency and improve user experience.”
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The proposal comes months after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen admitted that the company knew Instagram was adversely affecting its teenage female users.
