It’s been 15 years since suicides overtook homicides because the second main reason for loss of life for youngsters ages 10 to 14 years outdated. Two years since the first Meta whistleblower warned United States senators that America’s kids are in danger from “disastrous” choices being made in Silicon Valley. (And a bit over a month since a second Meta whistleblower testified, “They knew and they were not acting on it.”) And it’s been roughly one yr since a wave of latest, youthful lawmakers—many elevating their very own younger kids—had been seated within the House of Representatives. “As a mom of two kids, you know, we want to make sure that their online experience is safe,” Representative Beth Van Duyne, a Texas Republican, tells WIRED.

All these adjustments—together with an alarming doubling of the adolescent suicide rate—and but, one fixed stays: congressional inaction. Amid a flurry of blockbuster whistleblower hearings, hovering marketing campaign guarantees, tear-soaked press conferences with the households of teenagers misplaced to cyberbullying, and dozens of competing payments that members have launched geared toward defending youngsters in our on-line world—nothing.

Congressional inaction has left the door open for the Biden administration to steer on the problem. On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission unveiled its proposal for a brand new set of tips to control social media corporations. The FTC desires to ban social media firms from figuring out kids—like focusing on their cell numbers—after they’re on-line, whereas additionally limiting which information is collected on college students, together with having apps not goal kids underneath 13 with adverts by default. With House Republicans now taking steps to question Joe Biden, why would they wish to cede their oversight authority over American tech corporations to the White House? Most don’t.

With a lot curiosity—and elevated stress from companies just like the FTC—why hasn’t Congress protected youngsters but? “I’ve never been able to figure that out either,” Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction on the problem, tells WIRED. Of course, there are theories floating across the marble halls of the US Capitol.

“M–O–N–E–Y”

Teams of tech lobbyists on Capitol Hill have dropped upward of $75 million (not together with This fall totals, which aren’t due till January 22) in 2023. Of the 637 “internet” lobbyists, as cash and politics nonprofit Open Secrets dubs the sector, a whopping 73.31 p.c are former authorities workers. Many of those lobbyists are from the identical congressional workplaces and committees now tasked with regulating the web. They’re not very refined.

One social media agency or one other appears to all the time be blanketing Washington with a feel-good, policy-focused advert marketing campaign. At the beginning of the yr, TikTok—which, at $3.7 million, spent extra in Q3 lobbying this yr than it did all through all of 2019 and 2020 mixed—plastered DC’s metro system, historic Union Station, and The Washington Post with adverts. When its CEO was dragged in to testify to an offended Congress this spring, it even paid for travel, room, and board for dozens of sympathetic “influencers.” For the previous month or so, Meta adverts have blanketed the Beltway: “Instagram supports federal legislation that puts parents in charge of teen app downloads,” the advert reads, with out saying which measures it’s actively attempting to kill on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers say the advert blitz reveals what they’re up towards from expertise corporations. “M–O–N–E–Y,” Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, spells out to WIRED. “They’re only in favor of stuff if they can write it.”