As social media platforms have completely changed how people live, their harmful consequences have become impossible to ignore. These platforms reward outrage and misinformation while burying truth and nuance, with catastrophic political consequences. Social media diminishes attention spans, distorts body image, and increases rates of anxiety and depression, especially among our children.

Meanwhile, massive tech companies are collecting unfathomable amounts of data on all of us and using new technologies to surveil us and affect our lives in ways big and small. From the ads you see on TV to your ability to get a loan, big tech touches all of our lives without transparency or accountability. These companies have now weaponized their data and influence to dodge regulation, leaving them free to continue to manipulate markets and consumers worldwide. Illinois and other states have started to crack down on big tech, but we need federal action to address these issues.

Whether it’s kids feeling crushed by online pressure, communities torn apart by disinformation, or our lives being manipulated by the whims of an algorithm, the stakes could not be higher.

I’ll fight to rein in Big Tech and support legislation that safeguards mental health, protects children, and strengthens our democracy, including:

• Taxing Digital Advertising: There’s no reason why tech companies should be allowed to avoid paying taxes on the ad services they sell. I support a progressive tax on revenue from digital advertising that would help fund federal priorities and ensure big tech pays their fair share.

• Breaking up Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple: A few massive tech companies have cornered the market, harming competition and innovation. It’s time to pass an updated antitrust framework – and to fully use the antitrust laws we already have – to break up big tech. We should open up Amazon’s online marketplace, reverse Facebook’s merger with Instagram and WhatsApp, spin off Google’s purchase of YouTube, and tear down Apple’s “walled garden”. And no more allowing mega-mergers to create massive tech behemoths.

• Increasing Transparency and Data Portability: Our online data should belong to us – not big companies. That means we need laws that give us the right to see what data tech companies have stored about us, ask to have that data deleted, and bring that data with us to other sites.

• Banning Addictive Design for Kids: Social media companies are using algorithms to get our kids hooked. Congress should ban features designed to capture children’s attention spans and manipulate our kids – including “endless scroll” and “autoplay.”

• Age Limits and Parental Controls: We need to build on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, raise the age where we allow data collection, and mandate real parental control tools to help parents protect their kids online.

• Fund School-Based Mental Health Services: Let’s invest in counselors, digital literacy education, and early intervention to combat the effects of social media on our kids.

• Restrict Cell Phone Usage in Schools: Cell phones have become a major distraction in our schools. Restricting the use of cell phones in classrooms will support teachers, students, and parents.

• Scientific Social Media Research: The Trump administration’s cuts to medical and scientific research funding needs make it harder to understand the effects of social media on our society – especially our kids. Congress needs to restore this funding and invest in better understanding this crucial topic.

• Algorithmic Transparency: Companies like TikTok build their algorithms to get users hooked – and might even be using their algorithms to promote a specific political agenda. Let’s force social media platforms to disclose how content is promoted and allow researchers access to study these algorithms. We have a right to know how these platforms are controlling what we see online.

• Crack Down on Bots, Deepfakes, and Election Interference: We need basic laws to stop the internet from becoming a tool to interfere in our elections and to spread misinformation. We should require platforms to strengthen safeguards against coordinated disinformation campaigns and online manipulation, including through bots and overseas “troll farms.”

• Responsible Artificial Intelligence Policy: Artificial Intelligence continues to upend our economy, our education system, and our world. If responsibly developed, AI has enormous potential to promote the common good and usher in a new era of American technological leadership. At the same time, it presents severe challenges on many fronts, from job loss to wealth concentration to disinformation to energy and water use to national security. Congress must develop a policy framework that promotes and champions America’s AI leadership and encourages responsible AI development to create good-paying jobs, protect the environment, keep kids safe, and ensure that AI promotes prosperity for the working class, not just the wealthy few.