Will This Legal Action Protect Children Online?
By Movieguide® Contributor
Utah made a major step in child online safety by passing a law that requires app stores to verify a user’s age before allowing them to download age-restricted content.
“Big tech has proven time and again that it will prioritize profits over child safety,” Marcel van der Watt, the president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) said in a statement. “Parents cannot rely on tech companies to protect their children. Solutions like the App Store Accountability Act will help eliminate current vulnerabilities that children are exposed to on apps that are so ubiquitous in children’s lives.”
“Children deserve to enjoy and learn without the risk of stumbling onto obscene or inappropriate content on their devices,” van der Watt continued. “We urge every state to pass the App Store Accountability Act to establish vital protections for children.”
The App Store Accountability Act requires app stores, like the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, to verify users’ age before allowing them to download apps with an age rating while also requiring parental consent for minors to download apps or make in-app purchases. This will help keep parents informed about the content their children have access to on their devices while also introducing a barrier to keep children from spending copious amounts of money no in-app purchases without their parents’ knowledge.
“The App Store Accountability Act provides a wide-reaching solution to child online safety that will significantly simplify parents’ efforts to keep their kids safe online,” added Dawn Haskins, the senior advisor to NCOSE. “Rather than trying to address dangers one app at a time, it allows parents to have more insight from the beginning – the key places where children download all apps to begin with.”
Outside of Utah, App Store Accountability Acts are currently being considered in Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, South Carolina, and South Dakota. Somewhat surprisingly, these bills have found support from social media giants Snapchat and Meta, despite the impact it may have on their user base. In February the companies released a joint letter voicing their support.
However, their interest in these bills is likely not as pure as it seems as it would absolve them of having to verify a user’s age, placing the blame on app store providers if young users were able to sneak through. Furthermore, these current laws do not extend to desktops, meaning younger users could still access social media through means other than their devices. Additionally, users who already have these apps downloaded are unlikely the be required to verify their age allowing the millions of young users who already have access to social media on their devices to remain unaffected.
Nonetheless, laws like the App Store Accountability Act are incredibly valuable and will likely play a major part in the framework necessary to protect future generations from the negative impact technology can have while their brains are developing. Another major part of the system that has already rolled out across many states is age verification requirements for users to access pornographic content.
Moveiguide® previously reported:
A pornography exposure abuse survivor is speaking up about the importance of requiring pornography sites to use age verification systems, hoping to save others from porn addictions.
“There is no place for children in the porn industry,” Rachel Robison, who battled a porn addiction for 13 years, told attendees at a briefing at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
She shared that she was exposed to pornography at 7 years old, which led to a 13-year-long struggle to overcome her addiction to it.
“If these sites would have had age verification, then my life would have looked extremely different, and I would not have endured the pain and suffering that I did growing up,” Robison said.
She explained that her porn addiction led to extremely poor mental health as well as an eating disorder.
“The mental health issues I was facing were rooted directly in my pornography addiction,” Robison explained. “Porn stole my innocence and polluted my mind, creating a dark reality that almost took my life.”
She continued, “Porn preys on the minds of children and young people with no attempt to protect them, but rather to make a profit despite their innocence. And I stand here today on the right side of history, choosing to fight for age verification on porn sites for my younger self and the children of the upcoming generation.”
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