INTERVIEW | Blackburn Bill Offers Parents ‘Toolbox’ Needed ‘to Help Monitor’ What Kids See Online

A bipartisan bill “would give parents that toolbox that they need to help monitor what their children are seeing in the virtual space,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn says.

“Kids are being exposed to things in the virtual space that we would never expose them to in the physical space, so it’s important for parents to have that toolbox, and it’s important to put the responsibility on these social mediaplatforms,” says Blackburn, R-Tenn., who on May 2 reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. 

“That is what this legislation does,” Blackburn says. “It requires these platforms to open up those algorithms and make them available not only to parents, but also to researchers, so that there can be a monitoring of the harms that children are exposed to.”

The legislation was initially introduced in February 2022 and unanimously passed the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in July, according to the Tennessee senator’s office. However, “the clock ran out before we got it off the floor,” Blackburn says.

Blackburn joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the legislation and how its requirements would be implemented. She also discusses the end of the public health measure known as Title 42, and how that will affect illegal immigration.

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