We, the concerned parents and guardians of Vermont's children, write to you today to request a meeting and express our strong support for Bill H.121. The online harms facing our children have become a public health crisis, with the digital ecosystem fueling issues like depression, cyberbullying, eating disorders, and exposure to unknown adults and illicit substances. The two core tenets of this bill - data privacy protections and consumer safeguards for minors online - represent vital tools for addressing this crisis. H. 121 creates important guardrails that would help prevent such abuses and ensure that companies must abide by a basic respect for consumer privacy, safety, and fairness. This crucial legislation aims to protect our children from the detrimental effects of social media platforms and online services that prioritize profits over the well-being of our youth.

Families are in crisis. We’re fighting every day to protect our kids from an online world that wasn’t designed with their best interests in mind, and instead only considers big tech profits and bottom lines. These design choices online pose real dangers and life-threatening consequences for kids offline. Teens who spend five or more hours a day on social media are 71% more likely to have one or more risk factors for suicide than those who spend less than an hour a day. That's a terrifying number when you consider that 81% of 14 to 22 year-olds said they use social media either “daily” or “almost constantly.”

We know firsthand that our kids feel powerless to stop their overuse - they tell us they want to be on social media less but feel helpless against these addictive designs. This is not a failing of kids or our parenting. Rather, this constant use is by design. Social media companies engineer their products to keep kids online as much as possible. It’s addiction masked as “engagement” – through hyper-personalized algorithms, endless notifications, and addictive designs like endless scroll all in the name of profit. In fact, thanks to Attorney General Clark’s lawsuit against Meta, we now know that Meta explored options to increase our kids' time on Instagram, utilizing the latest in neuroscience. How are our teens supposed to compete with that? These manipulative tactics harm users, especially the youngest and most vulnerable. Regulating the tech products our children use is way overdue. The Vermont Kids Code provisions of H.121 would lead the nation by requiring these companies to redesign their products without the features that trap our kids in this endless scroll.

A key component of H.121 is providing meaningful data privacy protections for all Vermonters - not just kids. It would place default limits on excessive data collection by businesses, ban the sale of sensitive data (including children's information), and institute strong civil rights protections to prevent discrimination through data processing. As parents, we appreciate that these strong data privacy protections won’t shut off when our children turn a certain age - and that our families as a whole will benefit from these protections. Additionally, through its age appropriate design code measures, H.121 tackles the addictive and deceptive designs on many tech products - protecting kids from designs meant to take advantage of their developmental vulnerabilities.

It’s incredibly important that Vermont join Maryland in leading the way. More than 80% of Americans say they want laws that force social media platforms to take steps to make kids safer online. While Congress has been considering bipartisan legislation on this issue for multiple sessions on the federal level, strong lobbying from the tech industry has stalled their efforts. Families can’t wait for Congress to act. Vermont has the opportunity to lead the nation in protecting children online and prioritizing young people’s mental, physical, and emotional health over profits for private companies.

The best way for Vermont to lead is through common sense consumer protection laws that ensure online products are just as safe for our kids as physical ones. The Vermont Kids Code provisions, through the age appropriate design code measures of in H.121, would require covered businesses that are reasonably likely to be accessed by kids and teens to provide protections to young people online: product safety for the internet. Businesses will be incentivized to design safer products to meet the best interests of families, just as they are incentivized now to meet shareholder interests.

The Vermont legislature has worked diligently, in a bipartisan manner, on these matters - taking action to protect children and consumer privacy online. You now have the power to solidify this policy into law and solidify Vermont's leadership on this crucial issue. By signing the H.121 into law, you can prioritize the health, safety, and wellbeing of Vermont's children and families..

We respectfully ask that you meet with us, other concerned parents, and our children directly to discuss this bill and the current online world's impact on our families. We know a better online world is possible and we would like to work with you on this opportunity to make Vermont a model for the nation in safeguarding our youth in the digital age.