WASHINGTON—Attorneys general from 42 states and territories have asked Congress in a joint letter to adopt measures to require warning labels for social media platforms. The AGs submitted this letter under the shared banner of the National Attorneys General Association.
"We, the attorneys general of the 42 undersigned states, write in support of the United States Surgeon General’s recent call for Congress to require a surgeon general’s warning on social media platforms," the letter reads. Here, the AGs are endorsing a controversial call by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy for a surgeon general's warning on social media platforms pushing assessments that overuse can be potentially addictive and contributes to a youth mental health crisis.
The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee co-sponsored the letter sent to Congress. Others who signed on to the letter include attorneys general from Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
The state attorneys general added in the letter, "As Surgeon General Murthy recognized, this generational harm demands immediate action. By mandating a surgeon general’s warning on algorithm-driven social media platforms, Congress can help abate this growing crisis and protect future generations of Americans."
Throughout the letter, the AGs rely on real-world cases of finding standing to target social media platforms that are accused of breaking the law. Several of the AGs who signed the letter are investigating or have filed actions against the U.S. operations of TikTok for violating consumer protection laws and the privacy rights of minors. Such actions add to the dimension of fear related to TikTok and its perceived threat to the United States' national security efforts to counter China and the Chinese Community Party. Earlier this year, Congress passed legislation specifically targeting TikTok, which was, in turn, adopted by outgoing President Joe Biden.
"These enforcement efforts are a pivotal step to protect the well-being of our nation’s youth and demonstrate the bipartisan concern for this critical issue," the AGs added. "States have also introduced local legislation to combat the crisis.
"But unfortunately, industry has fiercely resisted these protections by suing to enjoin many of these laws," they note, citing major First Amendment legal victories in cases that deal with the civil liberties concerns levied by appropriate age design codes, age verification requirements and other regulatory concepts.
NAAG's letter also urges Congress to continue "to consider such measures and continue the search for innovative solutions to protect our children in the face of emerging technologies." These "measures," to NAAG, include the extremely controversial Kids Online Safety Act and COPPA 2.0 (both are now a part of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, or KOSPA) that both passed through the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support. KOSPA is currently in limbo in the GOP-controlled House.
"The Senate’s recent passage of the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act demonstrated significant bipartisan commitment to tackling these critical issues," reads the letter. Though not a direct endorsement of KOSPA's constituent proposals by NAAG and the attorneys general who signed the letter, it does show an interest among these chief law enforcement officers in supporting laws that could harm freedom of speech.
Add the broader call for social media health warnings to the support for legislation like KOSPA, and the concern for the technology and digitally-native industries is palpable. AVN analyzed Surgeon General Murthy's calls for social media health warning labeling over the summer, comparing the concept to efforts to restrict adults' access to age-restricted online content, like porn, under the guise of countering a supposed public health crisis related to consuming adult entertainment.
Such a concept is similar to warning labels for porn websites as found in laws like Texas House Bill (HB) 1181. AVN has reported extensively on HB 1181. Adult industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition filed a lawsuit alongside the parent companies of the largest adult platforms in the world in federal court challenging HB 1181 and provisions in it requiring these pseudoscientific public health labels about porn. A panel at the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, though upholding age verification measures in HB 1181, found the public health warnings requirement wasn't justified. There are also disputes in the claim that social media is addictive.
“Warning labels on media images that have been digitally modified are ineffective in preventing the negative effects of media images on body image at best,” said Rachel Rodgers of Northeastern University in a press statement published in June. Rodgers is an associate professor of applied psychology at Northeastern.
“At worst they actually exacerbate these effects," she added via the statement that was published as a direct response to Surgeon General Murthy's claims. Surgeon General Murthy wrote a guest essay in the New York Times opinion section calling on Congress to require public health labels on social media like those for vapes or tobacco products.
"A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe," Murthy wrote in his essay. "Legislation from Congress should shield young people from online harassment, abuse, and exploitation and from exposure to extreme violence and sexual content that too often appears in algorithm-driven feeds."
