Whether it’s keeping in touch with loved ones on the phone or using a tablet for help with schoolwork, our children are surrounded by technology in their daily lives. As a parent, I realize that it comes with a host of challenges. Today, it’s difficult to keep up with the ever-changing technology our children use – and it’s becoming even more difficult to know how to protect them from online dangers.
There are millions of parents just like me (back in the day) learning in real-time how to raise our children in an online world. Around the country, lawmakers are trying to make our job a little easier by giving us more tools and resources to help us protect our kids when they’re online. Unfortunately, some well-intentioned elected officials here in Tennessee are taking the wrong approach to remedy the problem.
Earlier this year, a bill was introduced in the general assembly that would have required phones to be installed with “content filters” designed to protect children from viewing explicit or dangerous material online. Of course, every parent wants to protect their child from harmful content, but as in many other areas of our daily lives, a government mandate isn’t the right solution to the problem.
Ultimately, it should be up to parents – not the government – to make decisions based on children’s individual needs. There are already effective and readily available tools like parental controls that allow parents to take a tailored approach to their child’s online experiences. A one-size-fits-all approach would instead let unelected officials make those choices and undercut the active role that parents like me want to have in our kids’ lives.
Even if we did want the government to mandate content filters on new devices, it’s not clear how legislation like this would be put into practice, or if it’s even legal. The technology described in the bill doesn’t exist, and if it did, even legal scholars who support the measure say that device filters would quickly be struck down for violating the First Amendment. That means we could spend time and taxpayer dollars in court fighting to protect an impractical technology when we should be pursuing realistic and more effective options to protect our children online.
As our own lawmakers were focused on pushing faulty device filter legislation earlier this year, other states have helped set the standard for how to protect our children online.
Last year, legislators in Florida passed a bill that created programs to educate children about online harms, like dangerous content and cyberbullying. In Utah, Governor Spencer Cox launched a public awareness campaign with the same goal in mind. These measures show parents how to use existing tools to protect their children from harmful content and encourage them to play an active role in teaching their child about safe internet practices.
In other states, like Louisiana and Virginia, legislators are holding websites that provide or promote explicit and harmful content accountable by forcing those sites to verify users’ ages. These solutions show there is a part for the government to play in protecting our children from dangerous content online without minimizing the role that parents want to have in raising their children.
Some legislators here in Tennessee might be inclined to renew the push for device filter legislation in January when the general assembly is in session again. They need to know that while elected officials and parents can work together to protect our children from dangerous material online, broad government mandates are the wrong solution to the problem. Let’s make sure we get this right.
This Op-Ed was also posted in the weekly publication Knox Focus, here.
