Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said regulators shouldn’t hesitate to take legal action against tech companies that fail to protect minors from new AI-powered software.
“The recourse ultimately has to be either the Federal Trade Commission or another agency suing Meta to within an inch of its life,” Markey said while speaking at today’s POLITICO AI & Tech Summit.
Markey sent a letter today to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, obtained by POLITICO, asking the company to pause the release of AI-powered chatbots it plans to integrate into its social media platforms.
Markey, at the summit, cited statistics on suicide among minors and pointed to a May advisory from the Surgeon General that social media has a significant effect on their mental health.
“Just wait a minute here. We’re not going to be able to handle devices talking to young people in our society without understanding what the safeguards are going to be,” Markey said.
Markey’s updated version of the children’s privacy bill, the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), advanced unanimously out of the Senate Commerce Committee but remains stalled with Congress on the brink of a potential government shutdown and no action to bring COPPA 2.0 for a Senate floor for a vote.
Rebecca Kern contributed to this report.
