• by Tim Love , August 14, 2024

An important national bill bouncing around our polarized and paralyzed Congress -- the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) -- is a good first step for the advertising industry, media platforms and their lobbyists and should help to expedite things.

I believe efforts to get help to prevent the well-documented and increasing harms on the internet will soon involve the advertising industry more directly. There is an opportunity for the advertising industry to lead a collaboration to protect our children as well as our country.

I recently interviewed Julie Scelfo of MAMA (Mothers Against Media Addiction), who met with New York Governor Kathy Hochul and is expanding her initiative nationally. Last week, I interviewed Joann Bogard, who lost her 15-year-old-son to a “Choking Challenge” he encountered on YouTube and TikTok.

Mrs. Bogard and many other parents who have lost children to internet harms have been to Silicon Valley, where they were received with sympathy and even tears.

Nonetheless, she and other parents check online every week since her son's death and find that despite the meetings and ongoing requests, the proliferation of “Choking Challenges” continues to multiply.

It is especially concerning to these mothers and parents who have had firsthand experiences like these that this harmful material is targeted to children by algorithms employed by the platforms.

Learning from Ad Industry History

Every new media that has developed throughout history has had some early abuses and user harms arise as some people inevitably try to take advantage of users.

In past cases of media harm during the inception of national magazines (late 1880s-1910), the inception of radio (1905-1930), and early television development (1935-1960s), the advertising industry (advertisers/marketing communication suppliers/and media) collaborated together as a force to engage with government bodies to form protections and content oversight on the "commercial speech” in these media.

They came together to avoid onerous legislative and financial measures and to protect their consumers engaged with the media.

This collaborative effort led to America's first ever communication act, which was called the Radio Act of 1927 and established the Federal Radio Commission (FRC).

Against the background of rising international growth and influence of radio, plus the outlook for television (the first successful transmission was demonstrated in 1927 in San Francisco), the act was updated as the Communications Act of 1934, which also changed the FRC to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

In 1995 (the “Dawn of the Worldwide Web” for practical consumer purposes), internet penetration in the U.S. was 14% -- well ahead of the rest of the world, which had only 0.09% penetration. It was then decided that the 1934 Communications Act should be upgraded for the new digital and extraterrestrial communication technologies.

However, a key strategic decision was made to protect America's global technological lead by not putting into place onerous legal and legislative restrictions. Importantly, in 1995, the digital outlook was that this new media would grow on a "subscription basis," like telephone service. This was understandably easily assumed because most of us in those early days had to use a modem and telephone line to access the internet.

It was not anticipated that advertising would play an important role in the platform’s development. It was not anticipated then that young children would hold open access to a world of information and influence in the palm of their hands.

It was not anticipated that adversaries of democracy like Russia, China and Iran would create their own autocratic internet and ban access of America's platforms in their countries.

Sadly, we did not anticipate or seem to care in 1995 -- especially after the fall of the Soviet Union -- what would happen as we left the doors to our communication highways wide open for foreign and domestic adversaries to infiltrate with their algorithms and efforts to polarize us.

The resulting Communications Act of 1996 (CDA 1996, formerly known as the Communications Decency Act) provided immunity to online platforms from civil liability based on third-party content and for the removal of content under certain circumstances.

It provided immunity for user content, just as there had been no liability for telephone conversations, as First Amendment protection. It was further decided that the digital platforms that would distribute the user content and data would also not bear any liability, just as with the telephone carriers.  

In addition, to reflect on prior learning with earlier communication technologies, it was assumed there might be similar abuses in child pornography and human trafficking in the new internet.

Section 230 of CDA provides "Good Samaritan" protection for operators of interactive computer services in the good-faith removal or moderation of third-party material they deem “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."

The authors of Section 230 believed the interactive computer services should be treated as distributors, not liable for content, as a means to protect the growing internet at that time.

Instead, the internet platforms have clearly grown via advertising and as publishers of anyone's content, with virtually no oversight for harms this could result in.

As we see the future coming with 6G globally and the race for technology leadership accelerating, we must take action to protect our historic national interests and values, while also protecting our children from harm.

One question being asked is whether the autocratic control of internet in communist countries, which is clearly not acceptable to America, is really any different than having our information highways, personal data and our digital identities controlled by a few large American corporations.

Last week, I interviewed Frank McCourt for my Discovering Truth podcast series. He is founder of Project Liberty, a bold and far-reaching effort to evolve to an Internet "DSPN” (Distributed Social Networking Protocol) where individuals have control over their data and digital identity.

McCourt is a leading voice on how digital platforms operate, and a passionate advocate for the economic benefits of an evolved internet. It was announced last week that Project Liberty is forming a consortium to buy TikTok.

Indicated Action

Antiquated protections regarding user and advertising content -- in a world where foreign and domestic adversaries of America can freely distribute harmful content to children and blatant disinformation to attack our democracy -- has turned CDA 1996 into a Trojan Horse. It has become a dangerous threat to both our national security and the healthy development of our children.

This should make the industry lobbying against legislation to protect children doubly alarming, especially given the documented foreign disinformation on the internet during the 2016 and 2020 elections. 

It is time for the advertising industry and America’s digital platform leaders to come together with our appropriate government bodies to warn and protect America from the War of Ideas being targeted at our country by our wide-open and unsafe, digital communications highways.

A good first step would be to marshal forces calling for the adoption of KOSA.

A longer-term action is to call for a new Communication Act -- one that follows the strategy called for by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations in 2022:

“The utopian vision of an open, reliable and secure internet has not been achieved and is unlikely ever to be realized. Today the internet is less free, more fragmented, less secure. Washington long believed that its vision of the internet would ultimately prevail and that  other countries would be forced to adjust to or miss out on the benefits of a global and open internet. Malicious actors have exploited social media platforms, spread disinformation and incited disparate forms of political participation that can sway elections.”   

I am seriously concerned for our democracy and the future of our children.