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Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force Principal Listening Session

January 30, 2024

On Wednesday, January 31, 2024, 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 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.

 

This listening session is the first in a broader series that will inform the KOHS Task Force’s efforts to develop recommendations, best practices, and toolkits to protect and advance the interests of youth online.

Following the opening remarks of the event a range of topics were discussed by the participants 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 of 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. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for more information on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Task Force on Kids Online Health and Safety.

Listening Session Participants
 

Alan Davidson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration
 
Jules Polonetsky, CEO, Future of Privacy Forum
 
Alvaro Bedoya, CommissionerFederal Trade Commission
 
Kayla Bethea, Wired Human Youth Coalition Core Leader
 
Amina Fazlullah, Head of Tech Advocacy Policy, Common Sense Media
 
Lael Brainard, National Economic Advisor
 
Arati Prabhakar, Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
 
Megan Moreno, American Academy of Pediatrics, Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health
 
Arthur C. Evans Jr., CEO and Executive Vice President, American Psychological Association
 
Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and Administrator, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
 
Charlotte Willner, Executive Director, Trust and Safety Professional Association
 
Neera Tanden, Director, White House Domestic Policy Council
 
Christopher Yoo, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
 
Nora Benavidez, Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights, Free Press
 
Dan Perkel, Partner, Media & Technology, IDEO
 
Pamela Wisniewski, Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University
 
Desmond Upton Patton, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
 
Rebecca MacKinnon, Vice President for Global Advocacy, Wikimedia
 
Emma Lembke, Co-Founder, Log Off Movement
 
Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General
 
Emma Llansó, NTIA Acting Deputy Associate Administrator for Policy Analysis and Development