Big technology companies are using methods to target children through websites and online apps in the same way that tobacco companies used to craft their advertising to draw the attention of young people, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said at a town hall last week at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg. The town hall on internet safety focused on protecting children from online predators and providing parents with the dos and don’ts for keeping their children safe, given the proliferation of online apps that could pose dangers to kids. Miyares was joined on stage at the event last week by Lynchburg Commonwealth’s Attorney Bethany Harrison and Capt.
Steve Anders with the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office, who also leads the Southern Virginia division of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Going through the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated trends that law enforcement agencies were already seeing, including the impact of social isolation on mental health. “And now we’re seeing the ramifications of the social isolation, of addiction, of depression, of child pornography,” said Miyares, who emphasized the growth of new technology can be overwhelming for parents trying to protect their children.
Law enforcement agencies face two types of “bad actors,” according to Miyares, when seeking to protect children from online predators. “One is the perverts going after our kids,” he said. “You know who the other bad actor has been? These big tech companies that put profits over people.
” Miyares said his office is “actively investigating” both Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, and TikTok, as well as several other social media companies that he is not allowed to publicly identify yet. These companies “know your child is their best marketing tool for their app,” he said. Miyares recalled when tobacco companies were using cartoons such as Joe Camel in their advertisements to make cigarettes more attractive to children.
“Why did they do that? They realized that if they could get your child hooked on cigarettes at 12, 13 or 14, they had a customer for at least another decade, if not for life,” he said. “Big Tech has acted exactly like Big Tobacco,” Miyares argued. Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack | All Of Our Podcasts The attorney general said employees at Instagram have referred to their scrolling app as “digital cocaine.
” “Their job is to get your child addicted so that they will stay on this device over and over and over again,” he said. The more time that children spend on these apps leads to skyrocketing rates of depression and anxiety, Miyares said. By using these apps and looking at the images several hours a day, children begin to think that everybody else is prettier than them, more athletic than them and have better lives than them, according to the attorney general.
“For a 12 or 13 year old, there’s a standard of beauty they feel like they can’t beat. There’s a wealth and a lifestyle they feel like they can never obtain,” he said. “It leads to overwhelming senses of anxiety and depression.
” Miyares said parents should delay giving their child a smartphone or any device that connects to the internet until they are 13 or 14 years old. For pre-teens and younger children, parents should instead buy them a flip phone, he said. “The day you give your child a smartphone with no filters, with no time limits, with no protection is the day that your child’s innocence dies,” he said.
“It’s like dropping your child off in the worst area of town and saying I’ll see you in 12 hours.” With the popularity of online gaming, Anders noted he has spoken with many parents who didn’t realize that Xbox or PlayStation could connect to the internet. “When you put that into a kid’s bedroom, you’ve just opened your child’s bedroom to the entire world,” he said.
For his children, Anders said he allows his two oldest to play online games with a small group of friends who he and his wife personally know. And when they play online games at home, Anders said his children have to play in the same room as he and his wife. Miyares said the Children’s Online Privacy Protections Act, a federal law, requires social media companies to ensure that no one younger than the age of 13 is on their platform without their parents’ permission.
According to Miyares, 40% of children younger than the age of 12 in the U.S. have an Instagram or TikTok account.
“They have done nothing to stop this,” he said about the technology companies..
