White House leaders and the co-chairs of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Task Force on Kids Online Health and Safety (KOHS Task Force) hosted a listening session with academic experts, youth advocates, civil society leaders, and practitioners on advancing the health, safety, and privacy of kids online.  Officials from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Domestic Policy Council, the Gender Policy Council and the National Economic Council joined officials from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Federal Trade Commission to welcome guests and to detail the Administration’s ongoing work to advance the health and safety of youth online.

Following opening remarks, participants discussed a range of topics, including:

  • The harms and risks kids and teens face online;
  • The necessity of digital technologies for engaging in every-day life;
  • Policy and design strategies that could center children’s well-being in companies’ product development processes;
  • The need for solutions that center the experiences and perspectives of young people, including direct youth representation in policy and design processes;
  • The importance of designing digital environments that help kids thrive, while identifying and addressing risks;
  • The need to balance the risks and harms of social media with the value of online platforms in building communities, particularly for historically marginalized groups including LGBTQIA+, Black and Brown, and neurodiverse children;
  • The risks to kids of large-scale personal data collection and advertising models of technology companies; and
  • Support for President Biden’s call for strong bipartisan legislation to protect children online in particular, as well as broader legislation that protects the public’s privacy.

Protecting youth mental health, safety, and privacy online is a key component to delivering on  President Biden’s Unity Agenda – a set of priorities that Americans from every walk of life can support. This listening session will inform the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing efforts to address the harms America’s children and youth face online. More information on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Task Force on Kids Online Health and Safety is available here.

Listening Session Participants

  • Amina Fazlullah, Head of Tech Advocacy Policy, Common Sense Media
  • Arthur C. Evans Jr., CEO and Executive Vice President, American Psychological Association
  • Charlotte Willner, Executive Director, Trust and Safety Professional Association
  • Christopher Yoo, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
  • Dan Perkel, Partner, Media & Technology, IDEO
  • Desmond Upton Patton, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
  • Emma Lembke, Co-Founder, Log Off Movement
  • Jules Polonetsky, CEO, Future of Privacy Forum
  • Kayla Bethea, Wired Human Youth Coalition Core Leader
  • Megan Moreno, American Academy of Pediatrics, Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health
  • Nora Benavidez, Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights, Free Press
  • Pamela Wisniewski, Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University
  • Rebecca MacKinnon, Vice President for Global Advocacy, Wikimedia

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