Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal’s op-ed in Capitol Weekly on the need for greater social media regulation in the wake of the New Mexico and Los Angeles social media trials.
“Right now, our regulatory system for digital platforms is woefully outdated. We regulate automobiles, pharmaceuticals and food products precisely because we recognize that unregulated markets can and do produce harmful outcomes. Yet tech companies can design, deploy and update products that reach hundreds of millions of users — including children — with little accountability and no mandated safety standards. The result, as the evidence in the Meta trial suggests, is a generation growing up in machines built to keep them hooked.”