One of the most significant expansions of online protection for children in decades is currently languishing in the House, without a clear path to passage. WSJ reporter Georgia Wells joins host James Rundle to discuss what happened to the Kids Online Safety Act, and how intense lobbying from tech giants including Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google contributed to its struggles. Plus, we preview Bold Names, a new series from WSJ columnists Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins.
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[00:00:18] Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Monday, November the 18th. I'm James Rundle for The Wall Street Journal.
[00:00:24] The Kids Online Safety Act offers the first major expansion of online protections for children in over 25 years.
[00:00:31] The bill sailed through the Senate this summer with near unanimous approval.
[00:00:36] But now it's snarled in the House and looks unlikely to pass before the next Congress.
[00:00:40] Later on in the show, WSJ reporter Georgia Wells joins us to discuss how this happened and the role big tech companies played in derailing.
[00:00:53] But first, our new podcast series, Bold Names, debuted on Saturday, right here in the Tech News Briefing feed.
[00:00:59] The first episode features an interview with Peter Rawlinson, CEO of electric vehicle maker Lucid.
[00:01:06] Rawlinson, a former Tesla engineer, talks about the challenges currently facing the EV industry and gives his thoughts on the future of competition from Asia-Pacific and the likelihood of robo-taxis.
[00:01:17] We're joined now by WSJ columnists Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins, who are co-hosting this new series.
[00:01:23] So, Christopher and Tim, tell us about Bold Names.
[00:01:26] Bold Names is a series about the bold name leaders who appear in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
[00:01:34] And it's about having a direct conversation with the folks who are making news every day, every week.
[00:01:41] It's an opportunity to have a conversation with interesting people who are leading very complex companies who are dealing with some of the day's biggest issues,
[00:01:51] whether it's the adoption of artificial intelligence or the transition to electric vehicles.
[00:01:57] And then we, of course, it's the Wall Street Journal, so we've got tough questions and we push back.
[00:02:03] This isn't some sort of public relations show.
[00:02:06] This is an opportunity to ask these people the questions that a lot of people have for them.
[00:02:12] So, Tim, the first episode went live this weekend with Peter Rawlinson, the CEO of EV startup Lucid.
[00:02:18] What made you want to talk to him?
[00:02:20] Peter's an interesting character.
[00:02:23] Played a huge, important role in the creation of Tesla's Model S sedan,
[00:02:28] which is considered one of the most innovative cars in recent history.
[00:02:32] He then went to what's now called Lucid and is working on kind of the next leap forward in technology, according to him.
[00:02:43] He sees Lucid becoming a major player.
[00:02:46] But just like the early days of Tesla, it's not a given.
[00:02:50] It's really hard to become sustainable.
[00:02:54] The car business is brutally competitive.
[00:02:57] And he is facing challenges from the mundane to the existential.
[00:03:03] And we got to hear some insights from him, how he sees the market and how it's changing.
[00:03:09] It's also fascinating to hear from somebody who was so instrumental in making Tesla what it is today,
[00:03:16] who is now going head to head with Tesla at a time when Tesla is both more valuable than it has been in a very long time.
[00:03:26] And he has a few contrarian views on the state of the market, on various ambitions from other players,
[00:03:32] such as Elon Musk's Robo taxis.
[00:03:34] Can you talk about some of those?
[00:03:35] He doesn't think it's happening in the near term.
[00:03:39] He is all in on electric vehicles right now.
[00:03:42] It's an interesting comparison here.
[00:03:44] Elon Musk got a lot of people excited for the idea of a cheap electric car in the near term.
[00:03:50] But in recent weeks has confirmed he's essentially abandoning that and really going all in on a car that will be used as a robot taxi.
[00:03:59] And whereas Peter Rawlinson, he sees a world where electric cars need to come down in price eventually.
[00:04:09] But right now he's at the high end.
[00:04:11] He's coming out with a new three row SUV called the Gravity, which is priced around $90,000.
[00:04:17] It will come down in price over time.
[00:04:19] The next big inflection point for them will be a Model Y competitor.
[00:04:24] It's maybe a vehicle that will be below $50,000.
[00:04:27] But he doesn't see Lucid going into the cheap EV market because, as he says, it sucks.
[00:04:32] Christopher, can you give us an idea of who's coming up?
[00:04:35] We have coming up Mark Benioff, head of Salesforce, whom you may know as builder of the tallest tower in San Francisco.
[00:04:46] And we also have Aaron Levy, head of enterprise software company Box.
[00:04:53] And J.B. Straubel, he's head of Redwood Materials, a battery recycling company.
[00:04:57] He is also currently on the board of Tesla, which puts him in a very interesting position relative to Musk.
[00:05:06] Those were our columnists Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins.
[00:05:09] You can listen to the first episode of Bold Names right here in the Tech News briefing feed, with the next episode dropping on Saturday.
[00:05:15] Coming up, Congress looked set to expand online protections for children in the first major piece of legislation since 1998.
[00:05:23] But after passing the Senate easily, why did it wither on the vine in the house?
[00:05:28] We'll find out after the break.
[00:05:29] We'll find out.
[00:06:10] The Kids Online Safety Act was meant to be a bipartisan effort to update protections for children in the age of social media.
[00:06:17] It passed through the Senate with near unanimous approval in July, but became snarled in arguments and concerns when it hit the house.
[00:06:24] What happened to cause such a rapid turnaround?
[00:06:27] WSJ reporter Georgia Wells discusses how a multi-million dollar lobbying effort from Meta and Alphabet's Google may have been a significant factor in splintering support for the bill.
[00:06:37] And Georgia joins us now with more.
[00:06:39] So Georgia, what has big tech companies so concerned about this bill?
[00:06:43] So for years, essentially since the dawn of the internet, social media companies haven't faced that much regulation that held them accountable for harms that at times happen to children,
[00:06:54] where sometimes their parents thought, you know, the harm originated on social media.
[00:06:58] And there's a lot of parents now who believe that it's time.
[00:07:04] And so the social media companies view potential regulation as a slippery slope, like the beginning of more regulation for them.
[00:07:11] So the bill would assign platforms what it calls a duty of care.
[00:07:15] What exactly would this mean in practice?
[00:07:17] So the duty of care would look at the design aspects of the social media platforms.
[00:07:22] So things like infinite scrolling or push notifications or the algorithmic amplification of content that maybe could cause distress.
[00:07:32] And so like this duty of care would put this legal onus on the tech companies to take steps to address things like mental health disorders, addiction, like behaviors, bullying, sexual exploitation and more.
[00:07:45] And one of the bill supporters said, in particular, that the parent survivors who are really the impetus for pushing this legislation in the first place.
[00:07:52] So Maureen Molak is a mother who has been really lobbying for the Kids Online Safety Act.
[00:07:57] And her son, David, took his own life in 2016 following addiction to social media and really persistent online cyberbullying that she believes could have been stopped with the Kids Online Safety Act.
[00:08:10] And she's told me that as a parent survivor, to feel like you're being toyed with is unconscionable.
[00:08:15] In your story, you reported that non-tech companies are also objecting to the bill, including WSJ's owner News Corp.
[00:08:22] Why is that?
[00:08:23] So non-tech companies that I spoke with had some concerns around like determining the ages of their users.
[00:08:31] A lot of these companies historically have not, frankly, paid much attention to whether it's an adult or a minor who's accessing their platforms.
[00:08:38] And so they had some concerns about responsibilities they might face.
[00:08:42] And in terms of lobbying efforts, the bill sailed through the Senate and got snarled in the House.
[00:08:48] But it also kicked off a pretty massive lobbying effort from Meta and Alphabet, among others.
[00:08:53] What has their strategy been?
[00:08:54] So Meta and Alphabet have been really kind of leaning on culture war type issues to try to splinter this bipartisan support.
[00:09:02] Because when the bill passed, it was 91 to 3.
[00:09:06] Typically, when something passes the Senate, 91 to 3, it's a signal that it's going to sail through the House.
[00:09:13] And so, yes, like you said, like this lobbying effort just really kicked off with these companies going to groups on the left to bring up concerns like LGBTQ expression.
[00:09:23] And on the right, they brought up concerns around like censorship of anti-abortion type views.
[00:09:30] And to put this in context, do you have an idea of how much Meta and Alphabet spent on this lobbying effort?
[00:09:36] The disclosures that are available don't disclose the lobbying spend by issue.
[00:09:42] But we know that over the past three years that Meta and Alphabet's Google unit have spent nearly $90 million on lobbying.
[00:09:51] And those lobbying disclosure forms over and over again mentioned the Kids Online Safety Act.
[00:09:57] What's the likelihood of this passing during this congressional session?
[00:10:00] So the view is that this bill is unlikely to get a standalone vote this year.
[00:10:05] That would effectively kill it for this session unless Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer presses to include this measure as one of the like must pass year-end packages.
[00:10:16] So that is what some of the folks who are really hoping for the Kids Online Safety Act are really crossing their fingers for.
[00:10:21] And what have Meta and Alphabet said about this?
[00:10:24] So a spokesman from Meta said better legislation in their view would focus on the role of parents in app stores rather than Meta.
[00:10:31] And so that spokesman said federal legislation should require app stores to get parents approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps.
[00:10:40] Kind of as a default setting was their point.
[00:10:43] While a spokeswoman for Alphabet pointed to protections that Alphabet already has introduced such as not letting videos play automatically for young users.
[00:10:52] And she said that Alphabet continues to work with lawmakers on the bill.
[00:10:56] While the bill languishes, have the social media companies done anything in the last few months, years to address the core concerns that prompted this legislation in the first place?
[00:11:06] So Meta added restrictions for teen accounts in September.
[00:11:09] One of those restrictions was automatically making youth accounts private.
[00:11:13] And this was following just like years of complaints from parents and youth advocates that Meta hadn't been doing enough to protect its most vulnerable users.
[00:11:23] And next year, of course, brings a shift in the makeup of Congress.
[00:11:28] Is the bill likely to be introduced with the new Congress as is if needed?
[00:11:31] Or is it more likely a significantly different version will be introduced, if at all?
[00:11:36] The folks we're talking to are saying, like, certainly they would foresee changes.
[00:11:40] That degree of significance is what's in debate right now.
[00:11:43] So we'll see.
[00:11:45] That was our reporter, Georgia Wells.
[00:11:47] And that's it for Tech News Briefing.
[00:11:49] Today's show was produced by Judy Chang with supervising producer Catherine Millsop.
[00:11:53] I'm James Rundle for The Wall Street Journal.
[00:11:55] We'll be back this afternoon with TMB Tech News.
[00:11:58] Thanks for listening.