Internet giants harm children, concert-goers and journalism – Marin Independent Journal

America’s youth spend more time on social media than on homework. Popular sites like YouTube and TikTok have unlimited freedom to hook kids into their businesses by analyzing their interests and sending out a relentless stream of photos. Scientists are increasingly concerned about the impact of this exposure on behavior and self-esteem.

The information age is outpacing government’s ability to monitor and manage it. With Washington in a constant state of gridlock, states need to set some reasonable boundaries. The California state legislature is trying to do just that, introducing a series of bills this year that have caught the industry’s attention. While finding reasonable and feasible reforms is not easy, it is definitely worth the effort. Here are some examples:

Addictive channels

Senate Bill 976 by Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, aims to prevent social media platforms from targeting children with unsolicited notifications.

By using complex algorithms to assess a user’s age and interests, social media companies can create an addictive cycle of use that will keep young people glued to these sockets and their screens no matter the hour. SB 976 would prevent these platforms, knowing the age of users, from sending notifications to minors between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. and during school hours on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

SB 976 aims to empower parents to stop the “addictive channel” altogether. Each platform would have to establish a process for obtaining parental consent once a young user and his or her parents have been identified. This would be a new tool for parents who want to limit their children’s exposure to social media. While this concept presents some technical and logistical challenges, it shifts decision-making away from social media companies back to families. Nothing replaces parenting.

Entertainment is close to a monopoly

Ticketmaster controls the majority of primary ticket sales to America’s biggest concerts and sporting events. It can also exercise vertical economic power if it has the contractor, venue and ticketing facility covered by the contract.

Legislators hope to lower ticket prices by creating laws that encourage consumers to have more options for purchasing tickets. Assembly Bill 2808 by Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, would prohibit Ticketmaster or any major ticket seller from entering into a long-term exclusive contract with venues such as arenas.

Shaking up California’s entertainment industry is no easy feat, and AB 2808 has been ongoing since its first hearings last month. But with neither Congress nor the executive branch taking decisive action in Washington, Sacramento remains a place of progress.

News revenue sharing

Search engines such as Google and social media companies such as Facebook have become the primary sources of news for many American consumers, although these companies do not produce news content. The migration of advertising revenues from news companies to these internet giants has accelerated the decline of news gathering in California and around the world.

Wicks is back on the front lines of the new economy, trying to redirect some of the profits from news back to the media that publishes it. Assembly Bill 886, the California Privacy Act, would require search engines/social media platforms to either reach an agreement with news providers to share profits or resolve the matter through arbitration.

The bill was approved by the Assembly last year and awaits consideration in the Senate later this year. The stakes have only increased as search engine giant Google recently announced that it is beginning to restrict the availability of California news on its platform in protest of the legislation, raising some thorny legal issues regarding censorship purely for economic reasons.

The information age has led to the consolidation of economic power at levels rivaling those that existed many generations ago in the industrial age. It took years to break up these monopolies. And this exercise was simple compared to reforming the algorithms of search engines or social media companies to protect the public.

Sometimes it makes sense for California to lead the way in the face of a national policy challenge, even when it’s difficult. This is one of them.