BAN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR KIDS? FED-UP PARENTS IN SENATE SAY YES

Sen. Katie Britt says she hears about it constantly when she is at home in Alabama - at school track meets, basketball tournaments and on her regular morning walks with friends. And when she was running for the Senate last year, Britt says, "parent after parent" came up to her wanting to discuss the way social media was harming their kids

Britt also navigates the issue in her own home, as the mother of a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old.

"Enough is enough," says Britt, a Republican who last week introduced bipartisan legislation with three other senators - all parents of young children and teenagers - to try to better protect children online. "The time to act is now." Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, too, deals with it firsthand as a father to an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old. Murphy says he's seen the upsides to social media, like connection during the coronavirus pandemic and silly videos that bring them joy. But he's also seen the downsides, including children he knows who he says have ventured into dark corners of the online world.

"I just feel like we've reached this point where doing nothing is not an option," says Murphy, a Democrat. "And increasingly, when members of Congress go home, this is one of the first or second issues that they're hearing about from their constituents." Legislation introduced by Britt and Murphy, along with Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., aims to prohibit all children under the age of 13 from using social media and would require permission from a guardian for users under 18 to create an account. While it is one of several proposals in Congress seeking to make the internet safer for children and teens, the four senators said in a joint interview that they believe they are representative of millions of American parents who are gravely worried that social media companies are largely unchecked in what they can serve up to their children.

"The idea that an algorithm has some sort of First Amendment right to get into your kid's brain is preposterous," says Schatz, who initially brought the bipartisan group of four together.