Congressman Auchincloss introduces the Education Not Endless Scrolling Act to impose a digital ad tax on Big Tech to fund trades education and promote one-on-one tutoring
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss (D, MA-04) introduced the Education Not Endless Scrolling Act, which would impose a 50% excise tax on digital advertising revenue above $2.5 billion, taxing the trillion-dollar social media corporations and directing those funds to one-on-one tutoring, vocational-technical schools, and local journalism. Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander (D, NH-02) is an original co-sponsor of this bill.
The United States faces an information crisis. Big Tech has eroded our political discourse and civil society by platforming click-bait and slop. These merchants and miners of digital dopamine use bits of software — social media, online gambling, and other apps — to manipulate humans’ reward systems and create addictive behavior. Two of the greatest casualties have been the attention spans of American children and local journalism.
According to Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative, 40% of all local U.S. newspapers have vanished, leaving 50 million Americans with little or no access to credible local reporting. When Big Tech usurps local journalism in pursuit of increased digital ad revenue, communities become less resilient, less informed, and ultimately less democratic.
Children are more vulnerable to the effects of digital dopamine than any other demographic. They are also a lucrative audience. Harvard researchers reported that youth ages 0–17 generated nearly $11 billion in 2022 ad revenue across six major social media platforms, with three platforms deriving 30–40% of their ad revenue from young users. This legislation seeks to reinvest that revenue into high-dosage one-to-one tutoring and building vocational-technical schools that would have in-real-life benefits to students across the United States.
To address these challenges, the Education Not Endless Scrolling Act directs and divides the tax revenue it generates from Big Tech among the following three funds:
- A Local Journalism Preservation Trust Fund to offset the budgetary impact of tax credits for hiring local journalists or for small businesses to advertise in local news outlets.
- A One-on-One Tutoring Trust Fund.
- A Career and Technical Education Support Trust Fund.
“The future must be built, not bought. Americans have a choice: allow tech titans to exploit our economy and epistemology, or tax their trillions to invest in jobs and journalism,” said Congressman Jake Auchincloss.
“Big Tech monopolists are endangering the health and safety of America’s kids, destroying American jobs, and crushing the free press in communities across our country. For what? Profit,” said Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. “It’s time to hold these big corporations accountable and invest in the sources of America’s strength: our students, our workers, and our small businesses.”