Georgia’s Republican candidate for governor, Rick Jackson, is homing in on the state’s social media laws for minors after Meta’s historic child safety settlement, pledging to codify the safety standards settled on in the lawsuit across all major platforms in the state.
Jackson made the announcement on Wednesday, one week after Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr settled with social media giant Meta Platforms, which owns popular platforms including Facebook and Instagram, as part of a multi-state, $17.1 billion settlement. The settlement on allegations that the company produced apps designed to addict children also included a commitment from Meta to introduce a wide swath of child safety reforms to its platforms.
The Georgia GOP gubernatorial candidate vowed, if elected, to instate the reforms in Georgia law, framing the issue as one also related to child trafficking. Jackson also promised to use the up to $135 million Georgia is expected to receive from the settlement toward efforts of cracking down on trafficking, finding missing children, and helping survivors of human trafficking.
“Traffickers are not targeting our children in dark alleys. They are targeting them online,” Jackson said in a statement. “Attorney General Carr just forced the largest social media company on earth to change how it treats kids. As governor, I will make that the price of doing business in Georgia for every platform. Parents should be in charge of their children, not algorithms, predators, or Silicon Valley executives.”
Jackson outlined that his plan would include settlement protections such as filtering age-appropriate content, parental controls, limitations on school-day and nighttime social media activity, and daily time limits.
Jackson is taking on Democratic nominee and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in the state’s gubernatorial general election. The race is pegged as a toss-up. Recent polling on the general election matchup has given Lance Bottoms a slight edge, but has largely found the candidates within single-digit margins of each other.
KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS AND RICK JACKSON AGREE TO OCTOBER DEBATE AS GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL RACE TIGHTENS
Jackson and Bottoms agreed this week to an Oct. 6 debate in Atlanta ahead of the election.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Bottoms’s campaign for comment.