Vermont Lawmakers Weigh Harm, Privacy in Kids Code Bill

S-69 is a proposed Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) Act that aims to curb children’s addiction to social media and requires that the highest level of privacy is set for kids by default. The bill previously passed the state Senate but must also get approval in the House and by Gov. Phil Scott (R) before it can become law.

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark (D) supported the bill. "One of the reasons why [the AG's office] is so passionate about these issues is because of our work in the data privacy space," specifically when it comes to social media and the state's lawsuits and investigations into those companies, she said. Given the committee's "foundational understanding of these issues," Clark said she didn't feel like she needed to explain "the basics," like how "kids are the products when it comes to social media and their attention is being exploited."

As part of her testimony, Laura Marquez-Garrett, attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center, showed a trailer for independent documentary Can’t Look Away about how social media harms children. “I really hope you'll watch the film in its entirety, because what people need to understand and what we need to start talking about are the fact that these social media products -- as currently marketed, designed and distributed ... are health-harming products,” she said. “These are not products that are safe for children ... and we need to stop listening to what Big Tech, its lobbyists and tech-funded nonprofits want us to believe." She said to instead "listen to their own documents, what former employees are saying, the emerging science, what their data proves, and what millions of children across the world are trying to tell us.”

Kaitlynn Cherry, a 20-year-old Boston University student, supported the bill on behalf of youth-led coalition Design It For Us. Cherry said she was lucky that her parents taught her about staying safe online, and "ensuring I always read the terms and conditions.” She admitted that kind of support system is not the reality for many minors. “We cannot put the onus on parents like mine to safeguard my generation."

NetChoice and other opponents of the bill said they understand the need to protect children online, but cited data privacy and First Amendment concerns as reasons why the bill is flawed. “Courts have found that similar legislation regulates protected speech by targeting the curation, dissemination and access to constitutionally protected expression,” said Amy Bos, NetChoice director of state and federal affairs. Additionally, “this bill does not explicitly mandate age verification, but it does create a framework that makes age verification necessary for covered businesses to comply with their obligations,” prompting privacy risks.

Josh Golin, executive director of the nonprofit Fairplay, said NetChoice's arguments against the bill "are akin to saying that requiring airbags and cars violates the free speech rights of automakers." When social platforms "are faced with a choice between providing a safer and less addictive experience, experience or maximizing revenue, they choose revenue just about every time, which is why the age appropriate design code is so desperately needed," he said.

If the state enacts the bill, "Vermont would be the unquestioned leader in protecting kids from the harmful effects of problems and social media," Golin added.

On the possibility of a court challenge, Clark said she would defend the law and win. "This is certainly defensible, given the harms that we know about and that are sort of public." She reminded the committee that former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy "said that he thinks there should be a warning on social media products. So, clearly, there's a harm there."

Frances Haugen, a Meta whistle-blower and data engineer, also pushed back on the notion of privacy risks. For example, she said, a user takes a video selfie and her age is verified on her phone, without anything sent to the cloud so “privacy can be protected.” She also said the type of content and ads, among other information about users, can be layered on to the video selfie to determine age.

Brianna January, director, state and local government relations at the Chamber of Progress, nevertheless described age-verification methods as “inherently unreliable” and include “really, really sensitive personal data.” In response to Haugen’s idea of layering ad or content information onto biometrics for age estimation, January said, “It's relatively low risk for an advertiser to get age verification wrong,” but “when we're talking about age verification under a policy for social media access, the stakes are much, much higher.”

The Senate passed S-69 on March 13 by voice vote (see 2503130040), despite Republican objections (see 2503120045). When the bill was in the Senate Institutions Committee, it also garnered much debate, including over definitions (see 2502210066) and business concerns (see 2502180029).