For Immediate Release
January 26, 2024
Contact: press@accountabletech.org

Ahead of CEO Evan Spiegel’s appearance before Senate Judiciary Committee next week, AT asks Snap to pull out of lobby group NetChoice, clarify position on children’s online safety

Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill released the following statement:

Snap’s endorsement of the bipartisan Kids Online Safety (KOSA) Act is a welcomed step towards protecting children from the on and offline harms caused by social media. But if Snap truly wants to keep kids safe, they shouldn’t just endorse KOSA, they should stop funding lobbying efforts to block it.

Since KOSA was first introduced, Big Tech lobbying group NetChoice, of which Snap is a dues-paying member, has spent over $1 million directly lobbying members of Congress to block KOSA and other critical online safety reforms. At the same time, NetChoice is using Snap funding to advance a radical legal theory in courts across the country, which if accepted, would make laws like KOSA unenforceable.

It’s simple: If Snap supports kids’ online safety, they should pull funding from NetChoice. If they don’t, Mr. Spiegel should face these questions from Congress: 

• Do you agree with claims by NetChoice that KOSA “hand[s] parenting over to bureaucrats,” “violat[es] free speech rights,” and creates “massive privacy and security problems for American families”?

• Are you aware that NetChoice specifically cited Snap in their lawsuit to overturn an Arkansas law requiring websites to verify users’ ages?

• NetChoice sued to block the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, arguing that corporate business activity – including collecting data on kids – is First Amendment speech that can’t be regulated or reigned in. Do you agree?

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