Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is helping to lead the way on children’s privacy solutions as the states work to combat the abuse and harm of social media impacts on kids. He is joined in this effort by his wife, First Lady Suzanne Youngkin, who will help lead a new parent initiative including a Social Media Tool Kit for parents. PRIVO supports this effort and will be a part of the solution by delivering a planned privacy by design opt in secure age aware™ and data protection registry, allowing parents to exercise their digital rights.
Also joining the program is Secretary Janet Kelly of the Health and Human Resources Department who said, “PRIVO’s parent engagement work is right out of my playbook and will surely be part of the resources we need to give to parents.”
At a statewide “Reclaiming Childhood” summit on children’s mental health and safety, Youngkin was clear about his intentions to care for Virginia’s young people. He has called for “Cell Phone Free School Zones” in Virginia Schools in his initial Executive Order #33.
“We need to put the pedal to the metal now on children’s mental health and safety,” said Youngkin at the summit in Richmond on Nov. 21. “One in five Virginia kids have mental health problems as they are spending 3.5 hours on social media every day. One-third of our girls say they feel addicted to these social platforms.”
“My new Executive Order #43 will bring the resources to parents they need,” said the Governor. “We will enable the parents to protect their children under the existing state code and federal law.”
Suzanne Youngkin agreed and said the current social media platforms are often “predatory.”
Clare Morrell, an author and who is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC's Technology and Human Flourishing Project, told the sobering statistics.
“Parental controls as they currently are offered by big tech is a myth. Even a small amount of screen time is enough to become addictive,” said Morrell. “Social media has become like fentanyl. We need to look at the Book of Proverbs, which Suzanne just cited: ‘to train up our children in the way that they should go.’”
“The algorithm promotes the most addictive and the most sensationalized content, especially serving up porn to our kids,” said Morrell.
“The Tech Industry makes $11 billion per year on engagement with children,” Jason Frost the founder of Wired Human from Nashville said. “They are selling out childhood on these predatory platforms.”
“The tech industry truly has no obligation to invest in children’s safety,” said Frost.