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Sen. Ed Markey was getting quizzed on the viability of new online privacy laws for children when he took a brief but awkward pause. 

The Democrat from Massachusetts, who has long championed consumer privacy and become a key adversary of tech companies like Meta for monetizing user data, joined a Zoom call Tuesday evening to rally support for two bills he said would protect kids from being manipulated by social media algorithms. But he also brought some bad news: The legislation had 鈥渟talled鈥� in Washington despite bipartisan support. 

Advocates this week are making a push to get the bipartisan bills 鈥� the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children鈥檚 Online Privacy Protection Act 2.0 鈥� across the finish line. In a letter on Monday, 145 groups including Fairplay and Common Sense Media urged lawmakers to pass the legislation in the interests of protecting youth mental health, now considered at an all-time low in this country. 

But Markey seemed to lay out a path requiring Herculean effort. 

鈥淥nly the paranoid survive,鈥� Markey said, adding that the legislation would pass if its supporters 鈥� and youth activists in particular 鈥� called their lawmakers and demanded they 鈥減ull this out of the pile of issues鈥� and give it priority. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to try to get it over the finish line, but we need you to just have your energy level go higher and higher for these final couple of months and we will get it done.鈥�

The legislative push comes a year after a Facebook whistleblower disclosed research showing that the social media app Instagram had a harmful effect on youth mental well-being, especially for teenage girls. The whistleblower, Frances Haugen, to regulate social media companies 鈥� Meta owns Facebook and Instagram 鈥� that she accused of pursuing 鈥渁stronomical profits鈥� while knowingly putting its users at risk. revealed the company knew Instagram made 鈥渂ody image issues worse for one in three teen girls鈥� who blamed the social media platform for driving 鈥渋ncreases in the rate of anxiety and depression鈥� and, for some, suicidal thoughts. 

The would make tech companies liable if they expose young people to content deemed harmful, including materials that promote self-harm, eating disorders and substance abuse. It would also require parental controls that could be used to block adult content and to study systems to verify users鈥� age 鈥渁t the device or operating system level.鈥�

The , which expands a law that Markey championed in 1998 to cover older teens, would ban targeted advertisements directed at children and require companies to offer an 鈥渆raser button鈥� that allows children and teens to remove their personal data. 

But deep-pocketed tech companies, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday, are standing in the way. 

鈥淥ur obstacles here are the big tech lobbyists,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey have armies of lobbyists. They pay them, they pay them very well. They hire them to block this legislation.鈥�

While the legislation is designed to protect kids, some digital privacy experts say the rules could come with significant unintended consequences 鈥� and could lead to an age-verification system where all web users are made to submit documentation like a driver鈥檚 license, requiring them to hand over personal information to tech companies. 

On the Zoom call to bolster support for the bills was Vinaya Sivakumar, a high school senior from Ohio, who created her first social media profile when she was 12. What started out as being harmless, she said, quickly took a toll on her health. 

鈥淚t just snowballed into something that constantly perpetuated actions and thoughts like self-harm and eating disorders and it was really never let out of my sight,鈥� said Sivakumar, referring to a stream of content she found harmful being fed to her by algorithms. 鈥淚t almost encouraged me to make decisions that I didn’t necessarily feel were mine and my mental health was in the worst state ever.鈥�

Kristin Bride, a mother and digital safety advocate from Oregon, implored lawmakers to pass the legislation for kids like her 16-year-old son Carson, who died by suicide in 2020 after he was 鈥渧isciously bullied鈥� by other kids on Snapchat who used third-party apps to conceal their identities. Last year, Bride , the company that owns the social media app Snapchat, and accused it of lacking safeguards to protect children from harassment. In response, Snap suspended two of the apps, Yolo and LMK. But , NGL, has since cropped up. 

鈥淯ntil social media companies are held accountable for their harmful products, they will always put profit over people,鈥� Bride said, 鈥渁nd kids like Carson and so many others are just collateral damage.鈥� 

Despite the heightened focus in Washington around digital rights and tech companies鈥� use of user data for targeted advertising, broader digital privacy legislation has also struggled this year. which would create a national digital privacy standard and limit the personal data that tech companies can collect about users, has hit roadblocks, from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Earlier this month, Ireland鈥檚 Data Protection Commission for violating European Union data privacy laws. The commission has been investigating the company for an Instagram setting that automatically sets the profiles of teenagers as public by default. 

Meanwhile, Meta has begun to roll out , including that automatically routes new users younger than 16 to a version with limits on content deemed inappropriate.

The childrens鈥� safety legislation, which would strengthen rules that haven鈥檛 been updated for decades, has received support from a broad range of groups focused on youth well-being, including and the American Psychological Association and The Jed Foundation. from digital rights advocates including the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In that while lawmakers deserve credit 鈥渇or attempting to improve online data privacy for young people,鈥� the plan would ultimately 鈥渞equire surveillance and censorship鈥� of children and teens 鈥渁nd would greatly endanger the rights, and safety, of young people online.鈥� 

鈥淒ata collection is a scourge for every internet user, regardless of age,鈥� the report notes, but the legislation could ultimately force tech companies to further track their users. 鈥淪urveillance of young people is , even in the healthiest household, and is not a solution to helping young people navigate the internet.鈥�

Disclosure: Campbell Brown oversees global media partnerships at Meta. Brown co-founded 蜜桃影视  and sits on its board of directors.

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