Biden accuses social media companies of exploiting children

During his State of the Union Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Biden stated, “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit.”

Additionally, “it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online,” “it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation,” and “it’s time to ban targeted advertising to children.”

His most recent blow to Big Tech came in the form of Biden’s remarks, which were met with enthusiastic applause from members of both parties.

Last month, the president urged Republicans and Democrats to break through years of political impasse and pass laws that would limit the power of US-based tech giants Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook owner Meta, highlighting the dangers that social media presents to Americans.

Biden has called for more protections for people’s personal data and online privacy on multiple occasions.

In its efforts to limit the power of the largest tech companies, the United States lags behind governments in Europe and Asia.

Biden wrote an opinion piece in January that was published in the Wall Street Journal. In it, he said that a law could give the government access to the algorithms that power social media and that legislators should rethink a law that already exempts tech companies from responsibility for the content on their websites.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which has been in place for a long time, needs to be changed, but political parties disagree on how to proceed.

Republicans, who gained control of the House of Representatives following the November election and are reluctant to oppose big business, view such an antitrust law as a long shot.

In recent years, large tech companies have exerted a lot of pressure to thwart any movement toward legislation in Washington.