Proposals in Congress to crack down on app stores are causing hard feelings between two of Silicon Valley’s tech giants: Apple and Meta.
The gist is that an Apple-aligned trade group sees Meta’s push to require app stores to do age verifications as a ploy to divert lawmakers’ attention away from how Facebook and Instagram protect kids.
“We’re very upset about Meta dragging the rest of the app economy into their fight that’s really about social media [and] inappropriate content,” Morgan Reed, president of a group known as ACT | The App Association, said. ACT counts Apple, Google and Amazon among its sponsors.
Meta, along with X and child safety advocates, comprise an unlikely coalition that supports the growing age-verification push.
In response to ACT’s broadside, a Meta spokesperson, Stephanie Otway, said Instagram is currently expanding protections for teens.
The bills: The app stores are likely facing multiple bills designed to increase competition. A handful of lawmakers, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. John James (R-Mich.), also want to require app stores to verify users’ ages in a bid to protect kids.
ACT is ramping up its lobbying by bringing lawmakers’ constituents to town to make the case that they are the ones who will be hurt by the legislation. Reed said many lawmakers see tech as consisting of “East Coast elites and Silicon Valley bros.”
If the group can bring in members “with long-drawl Alabama accents,” however, those visits can help “help members of Congress re-center their view of tech on the local aspects.” ACT’s work included a two-day fly-in earlier in May by developers from roughly 30 states.
The little guy argument: Despite the focus of the bills on app stores, several approaches would require small apps to get info from Apple and Google about whether users are minors and implement any restrictions.
A hypothetical app for a local Italian food chain “now has to redo their app, hire a developer, because the guy slinging pizza doesn’t sling code at night,” Reed argued.
Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of safety, in the past, has noted the proliferation of state laws requiring apps to do age verification. In arguing for a federal standard, Davis wrote in 2023 that “social media laws that hold different platforms to different standards in different states will mean teens are inconsistently protected.”
Correction: An earlier version of this item incorrectly identified Apple, Google and Amazon as members of ACT. They are sponsors of the group.
