The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Fight for the Future write to Senate Judiciary Committee chairs and members to focus their questions at tomorrow’s hearing on child safety on ensuring the technology companies represented at the hearing are appropriately investing in identifying threats to young internet users and developing content-neutral tools to mitigate these threats including tools that empower young people to protect themselves and their privacy. These tools will do more than efforts to advance legislation that, as currently drafted, undermines their rights.

We strongly agree with Committee members that ensuring young people are safe online is essential. But, black-and-white assertions about the role social media plays in young people’s lives risks obscuring the real ways young people use and rely on these services. Ensuring safety is not and should not be at odds with supporting young people’s autonomy to access information, use secure communication channels, and make decisions about their online experiences. Compromising the latter goals to achieve an illusory sense of safety will undermine young people’s well-being as well as their fundamental rights. As we have highlighted in the past, some of the legislative proposals before the Senate including STOP CSAM Act of 2023, EARN IT Act of 2023, and KOSA 2023 bear this risk and threaten to jeopardize all internet users’ access to information and privacy.

Read the full letter.