Concerns about the impact of social media on young people and old.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today your Senator Marcia Blackburn of Tennessee, the Great State of Tennessee. A lot of people are moving there and Santa Blackburn, you are very very much concerned, I understand of on what’s going on with social media, how it’s affecting our kids, how it’s affecting our society.

0:22 Can you tell us about what’s going on in Washington on how we can have better controls on it.

0:30 Speaker 2 Yes, indeed, and what we are working on is the Kids Online Safety Act. And this is something Senator Boymanthal and I have done in a bipartisan manner, and it would establish some transparency and accountability, a duty of care, and require these social media platforms to disclose their algorithms.

0:55 It would also put in place a toolbox that kids and parents can use to protect these kids online. Because what we have learned from research from the CDC, from hearing from parents and teachers and pediatricians and psychiatrists, is that children are being so adversely impacted about what they are seeing on social media. There are videos on YouTube

1:24 about how to commit suicide. There are all of these days.

1:30 Speaker 1 Did you say that there’s videos on YouTube how to commit suicide for kids?

1:34 Speaker 2 Yeah, you know how much there’s music to commit suicide. Buy here is you know, instructions self harm, different things that kids can do, eating disorders, pushing some of this adverse activity, adverse relationships. We know that children are meeting drug dealers online, they are meeting pedophiles online. They are being pulled into relationships that are not healthy for them,

2:07 and they’re meeting people who disguise themselves as kids. And then you find out it may be an adult who is going online acting as if they’re a kid, but they’re not, of course, And then this is how some of these kids are being apprehended. It’s how they’re having access to drugs. It is how gangs are recruiting them.

2:34 It is how some of the cartels are recruiting people to go drive some of these illegal entrants into the country further into the country. So this is what is taking place and online space.

2:50 Speaker 1 There’s so many lies going on in the Internet. I mean, it’s just driving our American people crazy. I mean, I just don’t understand what we can do anymore.

3:05 Speaker 2 Well, John, this is fine. We hear from parents every single day that what is happening online. I was down in the West part of the state yesterday of Tennessee, and I was talking with a principle, not a principle, a superintendent of a school system, and they were telling me how so many of the behavior problems that are

3:31 in school, the bullying that takes place, that it starts online. And previously kids could go home and they would be away from the bully, they could go somewhere with their friends, they were away from whomever is bullying them. But now that it is online, it never stops. And that is when these children move. They fall into depression, They have anxiety,

4:01 they develop mental health issues, and much of it is exacerbated by relationships and by activity online.

4:12 Speaker 1 The education system that our kids are getting today is the worst that’s ever been.

4:18 Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, the thing is you’re right. The education system and some of these life skills that have always been necessary to help children, these coaching skills, they’re not teaching these life skills in school, and so children will go home, they get they are doing their homework, they’re picking up their phone, they’re looking at who is reaching

4:45 out to them, and so their mind is always processing this and it builds the anxiety and it causes them to have issues of coping and dealing, and so your teachers and your principles will say many times when they have to call kids in for situations in school, they find out that the bullying or somebody saying something, it

5:20 all started online.

5:23 Speaker 1 Unbelievable. It’s just it’s hurting our kids and it’s going to hurt our country long term. We got a been at left anything you want to tell the American people, well, as.

5:34 Speaker 2 I said, our Kids Online Safety Act we’re filing this week. People can go to Blackburn dot Senate dot god, or they can follow me on social media at Marshall Blackburn and join the thousands of parents who are supporting this and we look forward to getting this passed into the President’s desk for his signature.

5:56 Speaker 1 Sanata Marsha Blackburn from the Great State of Tennessee. Thank you. Thank you for keeping up and letting the American people know what’s going on, and we’ll catch up with you again real soon.

6:07 Speaker 2 You got it. Take care, bye bye, take it