Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI) introduced a bill late last month that aims to partner with parents to protect children from online content that may harm minors.
The App Store Accountability Act serves to “provide a private right of action regarding children’s exposure to covered content on apps, and for other purposes,” the bill says.
Under the bill, parents and legal guardians have the “right to seek a remedy when their child is exposed to an app that contains covered content,” while “app stores should provide parents and legal guardians with effective tools to protect children from covered content on apps, including age verification technology, parental oversight and consent features, and accurate app age ratings.”
“Covered content” is defined in the bill as anything that may be sexual in nature, violent, lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value,” and uses a messaging forum where a user may interact with minors.
Lee said in a statement that “too many companies profit from adult content reaching children, and it’s going to stop.”
“First, this bill creates a private right of action for parents and guardians against app stores that expose their children to pornographic content and extreme violence,” he added. “That means these companies can be sued. App stores can protect themselves from liability by enforcing age verification and parental controls.”
Lee noted that Americans cannot “rely on big corporations to be ‘moral.’ We need them to know they’ll go bankrupt if they victimize kids.”
In July, the U.S. Senate passed two bills that seek to protect children online, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act. A bipartisan coalition of more than 30 attorney generals has urged the House to take action on the KOSA.
“We are acutely aware of the threats minors face on social media. Many social media platforms target minors, resulting in a national youth mental health catastrophe,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) wrote in a letter sent to the House and Senate, as reported by The Hill. “These platforms make their products addictive to minor users, and then profit from selling minor user data to advertisers,” the letter continued. “These platforms fail to disclose the addicting nature of their products, nor the harms associated with increased social media use. Instead, minor users receive endless tailored and toxic content.”
