Democrats' First 'Project 2029' Proposal: More Government Control Over Social Media
· Reason
Democrats are gearing up for the 2028 election and preparing a list of policy priorities—dubbed "Project 2029"—should they retake the White House. The first Project 2029 proposal is not about affordability, healthcare, or foreign policy. No, the Democrats' first proposal concerns children's online safety: the issue fueling lawmakers' bipartisan push to impose greater government control over the internet.
Semafor's Nicholas Wu first reported on the "Kids Over Clicks" proposal on Monday. The proposal, Wu wrote, advocates for "narrowing protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that shield platforms from some liability," banning social media accounts for kids under 16, "designing safer internet platforms," and more.
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Supporters of the proposal include the author and social scientist Jonathan Haidt, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.), and New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill, according to the outlet. Sherrill's involvement comes as no surprise, as she has made online safety a main focus of her gubernatorial agenda. The first-term governor has proposed creating both an Office of Youth Online Mental Health Safety and a Social Media Research Center in New Jersey. The Kids Over Clicks proposal was written by Rishi Bharwani, the U.S. director of Reset Tech, a group dedicated to "countering digital threats to society." Bharwani previously co-chaired Sherrill's children's online safety policy team and led Booker's tech policy team.
The proposal claims that America is witnessing a "tobacco moment," this time for social media and AI companies, and the government must intervene as it did with the tobacco industry to prevent harm. But this is a fraught comparison, as Reason has pointed out, because tobacco is a physical product with measurable side effects, and social media is a vehicle for speech. The distinction matters because any policy regulating speech should be evaluated based on First Amendment grounds, not on its potential to reduce harm.
The Kids Over Clicks proposal's call to impose age restrictions on social media sites presents a particularly chilling threat to free speech. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned, age verification laws "violate all internet users' rights to access information, impinge on people's right to anonymity, and exacerbate their data and security risks." In the U.K., the Online Safety Act has exposed the problems with age verification, as users must fork over their data when they want to view age-restricted content, effectively censoring wide swaths of the internet for children and adults. The censorship implications have not deterred the U.K. government from imposing more regulations, as the country prepares to implement a social media ban for teens, which will likely take effect next year. It appears that Project 2029's authors are eager to import similar policies from abroad, citing Australia's social media ban—which many teens have been able to skirt—as a successful case study in online safety.
It may seem odd that Project 2029 is making its debut by advocating for censorship policies, but Semafor reported that the project authors "wanted to start with kids safety because it's among the least politically polarizing topics."
This sentiment is, unfortunately, correct. Children's online safety has become a bipartisan issue that lawmakers have used to crack down on personal freedom. Red states, including Texas and Florida, have enacted online safety laws in the name of protecting children. And on Monday night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, a bundle of online safety bills that includes a version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). The House's version of KOSA does not include a duty of care provision, making it slightly less restrictive than the Senate's KOSA bill. Still, digital rights groups such as Reclaim the Net warn the KIDS Act raises significant concerns "about government overreach, privacy erosion, and the expansion of online surveillance." If passed, the KIDS Act would also allow states to enact their own laws regulating social media and AI companies, according to the bill's co-author, Rep. Frank Pallone (D–N.J.).
Democrats may be fractured internally, but the party is certainly uniting over a winning position in Washington: advocating for more government control over the internet. As Monday night's vote demonstrated, they will find Republican allies who want to regulate the internet, too. If this pro-censorship coalition works diligently enough, it may achieve the goals of the Project 2029 proposal well before the next election.
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