The surgeon general is calling on Congress to approve warning labels for social media websites and apps, alerting parents and young users to the dangers these sites can pose. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The Surgeon General is calling on Congress to prove warning labels for social media websites and apps, alerting parents that young users have the danger of having mental side effects. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about it. As I read this story, God bless him, Murthy trying to do something. At least trying to do something. I don’t know that it means much, but he’s trying to do something. The real angle on this to me is all they have to do is congressionally act on 230, which is this immunity that these sites have. If they would do away with that, this problem would solve itself.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it’s not just doing away with 230. I think we need to amend it just because we don’t want these sites overreacting and saying, okay, well now suddenly we’re liable for any kind of defamation that happens on our platform. So do a little carve out for that and I think we’re good here. But Murthy as the Surgeon General doesn’t have a lot of authority. He really can’t even do what he’s calling for here, which says we need warning labels and he says, but I can’t do it. Congress, I know y’all can’t even get along with each other for five seconds, but you guys really need to do this because we’ve got scientific studies, we’ve got lawsuits out there. All of this mountain of evidence showing that these social media sites are psychologically damaging young users.
Mike Papantonio: Overwhelming. The numbers are overwhelming when you look, well, actually we’re involved in some of those lawsuits. When you look at the documents, most of them understood exactly what they were doing with algorithms. They understood what they were doing with addiction. They used, as a matter of fact, if you take the profile that they used to addict kids to this, same profile they used on tobacco, which was a case we started as well. So I see so many parallels including the parallel to where Congress won’t do what they’re supposed to do. So this Surgeon General is saying, look, at least let me state the obvious that we’re having bad psychological effects that we’re seeing in children because of social media.
Farron Cousins: Well, and what’s even sadder to me is the fact that the Surgeon General didn’t come out and say this in a big grand press conference. He had to write an op-ed.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. New York Times. Right?
Farron Cousins: So he has to sit down, write this out, put it in the New York Times, hoping somebody is gonna see it. But what he’s gotta do is you gotta get louder. You have to be more adamant about things like this and you have to go and address Congress.
Mike Papantonio: We’ve done so many stories on this and of course whenever we say it, we’re called old fuddy duddies, you know, God, the old guys are talking about kids. No. Is there any doubt in your mind when you review all the material we’ve done on this and you take, I don’t know if you’ve followed the lawsuit that we’re actually handling, but I’ve seen, I’m looking at the documents. Is there any doubt that this is having a dramatic effect, the social media in general, it’s having dramatic effect on the mental wellbeing of young kids?
Farron Cousins: Oh, it absolutely is. And like I said, there’s tons of scientific data now proving that this is happening. And to be honest too, and the Surgeon General mentions this, he says, look, part of the issue here too is parents, y’all gotta do your part too. You can’t just wait for Congress or for the Surgeon General to act and say, parents, here’s what you do. Maybe take a little initiative in your kid’s life, keep ’em off the screens for certain times a day. Not all the time, but maybe say, hey, it’s dinner time. Put the social media away. And he mentions that specifically.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I gotta tell you, the 230 is a problem.
Farron Cousins: Oh, it is, it absolutely is.
Mike Papantonio: Maybe me saying do away with it is overkill. It needs to be modified. This was a Clinton gift, you understand.
Farron Cousins: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Mike Papantonio: This is Bill Clinton saying, hey, if you take care of me, I’m gonna give you this. That’s exactly what it was. And they did just the opposite. He said, well, these are gonna be my friends now. They absolutely destroyed his presidency after the Lewinsky issue. But it was his way of saying, hey, I’ve got an in with you guys now. I’ve given you 230. You have this weird immunity that nobody else has, and so life’s gonna be good.
Farron Cousins: Well, and it was almost 30 years ago that that was put in place when the internet was just beginning. And so, obviously with the way it has evolved, the law needs to evolve with it and it hasn’t.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, exactly.
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