Imagine the internet as a bustling city. There are people, shops, histories and homes, but no city hall or police.
Now, let’s say a crime was committed. What should be done?
For many politicians, nothing should be done.
UCLA students who grew up with the internet can understand its dangers. Young people, as digital residents, need to urge our state and federal lawmakers to regulate the internet like they do other forms of telecommunications and to prioritize teaching safe, healthy habits when using these platforms.
The internet has become a part of life we can’t seem to live without or escape from. It’s become another basic utility – but unlike water or gas, there are no regulations that keep internet companies in check, said Sarah Roberts, director of UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.
“There are such high stakes, and there’s so much financial value related to these platforms and all of our time and attention that we give over to them that there’s no way that a company who owns such a valuable asset would ever just let it be a free speech zone,” said Roberts, a professor of gender studies, information studies and labor studies.
Platforms like Instagram or TikTok have intentionally fashioned themselves as marketplaces of ideas. For kids, they can grow up thinking their world is only as far-reaching and meaningful as the algorithm allows it to be because these platforms need lifelong customers.
“In high school, that (social media) has a huge influence on who you’re associated with, how you’re perceived, the kind of aesthetic groupings that you get put into, either voluntarily or by other people’s perceptions,” said Ayana Nieto, a recently graduated English student.
In February of this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom voiced his support for age restrictions on social media apps for kids, citing a large body of research linking screen time with stress and anxiety. California wouldn’t be the first government to implement such a ban: Australia recently prohibited social media access for children under 16.
The promise of community and the illusion of free speech funnel us into these applications. But to social media companies, we’re just something to profit off of.
“You soon realize that users like us are not actually the customers,” Roberts said. “We’re actually what’s being sold. Our attention, our time, our likelihood of clicking through on an ad.”
To Nieto, part of the problem is that most kids can’t understand that Instagram posts aren’t always authentic. They can also have a hard time with offline connection, she added.
For Jolie Chui, a rising fourth-year English and linguistics student, social media and the internet aren’t inherently dangerous but can be when used without proper instruction.
“My parents always told me to be very careful about putting your name out there, and my school was also really good at letting me know what the horrors were,” Chui said. “It was actually very helpful in keeping my privacy out on the internet.”
When technology use in schools and the home increased, education about how to use it should have followed suit.
Legislators are finally attempting to put boundaries on companies that actively seek children out, Roberts said. Kids, however, will still find ways to bypass the proposed bans, she added.
“It’s in the absence of really meaningful safeguards coming out of those firms, even though they’ve given a lot of lip service to that over the years,” Roberts said. “It’s like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.”
Unlike the internet, traditional broadcast media has been regulated and litigated into oblivion, giving rise to the Motion Picture Association of America’s content ratings and content censors. Politicians, over time, understood the dangers of unsupervised corporations wielding novel technologies.
A solution to the misuse of radio, television and cinema wasn’t a blanket ban, but rather content moderation by the federal government, as seen through the Federal Communications Commission policies for broadcast fairness. Content moderation was supported by the instruction of how to properly and healthily consume these new forms of media with both policy affecting television broadcast and community-wide campaigns led by public health agencies.
“We can demonstrate that the lack of regulation is, in fact, what has allowed them to become so very profitable and so powerful,” Roberts said.
These companies have little desire to solve a problem that makes them so much money. But state legislatures have yet to hold them accountable.
Young people – as those raised in Internet City and who know the cost of lawmakers’ inaction – should be the ones to advocate for that change in our hometown.
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