It’s been 21 years since the feds “protected” us from endless telemarketer phone calls by creating a Do Not Call list. I now receive perhaps a dozen calls a day from numbers my phone identifies as “Potential Spam.”
Spammers “outwitted the government and wrecked” this system, The Washington Post reported, leaving Americans more susceptible than ever to car warranty pitches. Fortunately, my phone’s call-block system works fairly well.
Excuse my cynicism, but federal and state governments have an unimpressive record of protecting the public, especially on consumer-related issues. That hasn’t stopped them from trying. The process always is the same: Politicians spotlight a legitimate concern. They pass laws. They hold press conferences. The problem gets worse. Consumers (and manufacturers) come up with their own ways to handle it.
The latest consumer panic involves social media—specifically the ability of children to access inappropriate websites and apps. Liberal and conservative state governments are in a frenzy to pass these “protect the children” internet laws. Progressive California passed Assembly Bill 2273, which imposes an “Age Appropriate Design Code” that adopts provisions similar to those implemented by the European Union.
The legislation claims to empower parents, but it mainly empowers our state government to determine what information is acceptable for children. Specifically, the law requires tech companies to complete a “Data Protection Impact Assessment…for any online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children.” It also empowers the state attorney general to file lawsuits against companies that don’t conform to these nebulous standards.
Supporters pointed to serious mental health concerns related to cyberbullying and the like, but it mainly forces tech companies to serve as censors, gives government officials broad powers to determine appropriate speech, and hobbles U.S.-based companies while doing nothing about offshore sites that surely will proliferate. By the way, the Do Not Call List helped assure that legitimate (but still annoying) telemarketing companies would be supplanted by overseas scammers.
The California law passed by overwhelming margins because of, well, “the children.” Now conservative states are getting in on the action. Utah’s GOP Gov. Spencer Cox last year signed two such laws that require “parental consent for a minor to join a social-media platform” and prohibit “minors from using social media from the hours of 10:30 pm to 6:30 am,” per an NPR report. They also require parental access to their kids’ accounts and let the state sue companies for age-inappropriate ads.
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