{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.britt.senate.gov/news/press-releases/u-s-senator-katie-britt-joins-keeping-it-real-conversations-with-jillian-michaels-to-discuss-taking-on-big-tech-protecting-americas-youth-online/", "U.S. Senator Katie Britt Joins Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels to Discuss Taking on Big Tech, Protecting America\u2019s Youth Online", "2026-08-03", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "Senate", "AL", "Katie Boyd Britt", "B001319", "www.britt.senate.gov", "britt", "https://www.britt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 U.S. Senator Katie Britt joined Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels, for a long-form discussion about Big Tech and social media, AI chatbots, the gambling industry targeting minors, and the adverse effects each has on America\u2019s youth. Excerpts from the interview are below.\n\nMichaels opened the episode by highlighting Senator Britt\u2019s leadership:\n\n\u201cKids are being targeted online in plain sight, and in today\u2019s show, we\u2019re naming names. Big Tech has built a digital Pandora\u2019s box for our kids, consisting of hard drugs and predators, two clicks away from a homework app. You\u2019ve got AI friends grooming lonely kids at 2 AM and gambling ads are following them from YouTube to their video games \u2026 Senator Katie Britt is one of the very few people in Washington actually trying to shut this down. She\u2019s been described as a mom in Congress, pushing an arsenal of bills from Sammy\u2019s Law, the Kids Off Social Media Act, the GUARD Act, the Stop the Scroll Act, and the GAME Act to drag kids out of Big Tech\u2019s experiment.\u201d\n\nSenator Britt on why taking on Big Tech is a priority for her:\n\n\u201cLook, the thing that\u2019s most important to me are my husband and my kids, and I feel honored to have the opportunity to represent the great state of Alabama. But I tell people every day, I don\u2019t have to ask people what it\u2019s like to raise kids right now, I am living it. And so, I know for so many people, my friends in particular, this social media space is uncharted territory. Jillian, you and I, when we grew up, we didn\u2019t have these complexities. I mean, growing up is hard enough as it is. And then we layer on top of it all of the things that social media has brought into our children\u2019s life.\n\n\u201cFirst off, I think Big Tech could do many of these things on their own and have chosen not to. So, I think continuing to apply the pressure there so that there is a change in behavior from that perspective. But then also Congress has been completely and totally feckless in this arena. And at the end of the day, we\u2019re allowing social media companies to put their profits above people, and in this case, these people are our children.\u201d\n\nOn minors buying drugs on social media platforms:\n\n\u201cIn particular, Snapchat has been egregious in this space \u2026 I\u2019ve sat across from a parent whose child bought an Adderall because they wanted to stay up for a test. They took the Adderall. It was laced with fentanyl. They died \u2026 Parents aren\u2019t aware that this is happening. So, number one, we\u2019ve got to bring attention to it. But number two, we have to stop it because, Jillian, if this were happening in a small town in Alabama on a street corner, you know, a little storefront on Main Street, we would shut it down. We know this is happening, and yet no one is doing anything.\u201d\n\nOn the alarming rise in underage gambling online:\n\n\u201cIf you and I had wanted to gamble when we were growing up, we would have had to have known who the bookie was. We would have had to have his number or hers \u2026 We would have had to know when they were going to be by their landline phone, and we would have had to call them to place our bet. These kids have to do none of that. It literally is coming to the palm of their hand. So, it\u2019s not only that they can gamble, and with a click of a button, it\u2019s also that these illegal gambling operations and gaming operations are actually targeting our children with advertisements. So, what is happening is these kids are getting stuck in a cycle. They\u2019re finding themselves in a very adult situation, but it\u2019s also one that unfortunately, they\u2019re continuing throughout their life. So, we put together the GAME Act, Senator Blumenthal and I did, to say, look, this is common sense, Jillian. You shouldn\u2019t be able to deliver advertisements about gambling until you\u2019re 18.\u201d\n\nOn the danger of AI chatbots:\n\n\u201cI have sat across from too many parents at this point that have told us \u2026 that their child died by suicide. When they went back into the child\u2019s history, an AI chatbot had told them to distance themselves from their parents, isolate themselves from their parents, had told them \u2026 to consider death by suicide, then told them how to do it, and then ultimately encouraged them to follow through with it. And so, we have a bill Josh Hawley, Senator Blumenthal, Chris Murphy\u2014obviously a wide swath from the political spectrum\u2014that it is saying, guys, AI chatbots should not be able to teach these kids how to take their own life. This is common sense. This is something we should all be able to get behind.\u201d\n\nMichaels and Senator Britt also discussed how social media algorithms exploit children, Section 230 reform, and more of Senator Britt\u2019s bipartisan legislation on social media and holding Big Tech accountable.\n\nYou can watch the full interview here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-08-04T07:35:49Z", "2026-08-04T07:37:27Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.britt.senate.gov/news/press-releases/u-s-senator-katie-britt-joins-keeping-it-real-conversations-with-jillian-michaels-to-discuss-taking-on-big-tech-protecting-americas-youth-online/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.11073674634099, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}