Legislation targeting children’s online safety could lead to blocking streaming services, according to a new study that asserts such a result is an overbroad response unsupported by data and could prove counterproductive to actually protecting kids online.
Is Social Media Legislation Too Broad? An Empirical Analysis, a just-released policy paper from the nonpartisan Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Policy Studies, answers that question in the affirmative.
“If teen mental health motivates the Kids Online Safety Act and similar legislation, then there is little reason to include video streaming in the list of covered platforms,” report author George S. Ford concluded. He cited research on television viewing, arguing that streaming video is essentially the new TV.
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As such, the report asserts, it is different from the other social media platforms — for example the social networks and messaging apps targeted by children’s online protection legislation at both the state and federal levels.
Online gaming is also a target, but the report suggests that aim may also be misplaced.
The report attempts to cull streaming video from the heard of unprofessional video posted on social networks.
Like the traditional TV it is supplanting, streaming video presents “professionally curated” libraries of programming “entirely populated with professionally produced films and shows that take millions of dollars to create and are the product of collaboration between creators, producers, financiers and other stakeholders — often taking years to produce.”
By contrast, it said, social media platforms generally feature user-generated content “including the disturbing and dangerous variety which is the focus of regulatory efforts.”
The report asserts that studies, including the Phoenix Center’s own, have found that use of a computer by children correlates with worse mental health — but not by using it to stream professionally produced video. In fact, it says, moderate video consumption is associated with better teen mental health and not with worsening it.
"The claim that television viewing has no negative association with teen mental health is contrary to 70 years worth of established research on the subject,” said Melissa Henson, vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council.
The council has been highly critical of some of that expensive, professionally produced streaming video content and its impact on kids.
