The Scoop
Democrats trying to lay policy groundwork for the 2028 presidential race are rolling out their first major policy proposal: a framework for online child safety.
Known as “Project 2029,” the liberal group was formed as a counterweight to the conservative Project 2025 to write a policy agenda for the next Democratic presidential nominee. The group reckons starting with online internet safety — which has widespread Democratic support — will help galvanize the party to address what it calls this generation’s “tobacco moment.”
The “Kids Over Clicks” proposal calls for narrowing protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that shield platforms from some liability. Among other items, the group wants to clarify that companies aren’t protected from lawsuits stemming from AI-generated content, paid ads, illegal content or activity, and platforms that promote stalking or other nonconsensual behavior.
The group is hoping the plans will pick up traction among what is expected to be a crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates heading into 2028.
“We’re going to see many people running for president … and we want to set the standard in terms of the type of ambition that we want to see when it comes to solving these problems,” said Chad Maisel, a former adviser to President Joe Biden and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker who now serves as Project 2029’s executive director.
The proposal also advocates for banning social media accounts for kids under 16 years old, adopting stronger default privacy protections, designing safer internet platforms, banning cell phones in schools (with exceptions), pushing for a smartphone-free childhood until age 14, banning surveillance pricing, and limiting data collection on children.
Project 2029 wanted to start with kids safety because it’s among the least politically polarizing topics, but plans to release policy agendas centered on issues including healthcare, housing, AI, and the border.
“Most high-profile political issues are already coded and claimed by one party or the other. Kids’ online safety is the exception,” said Rishi Bharwani, US Director for Reset Tech and a contributor to Project 2029 who helped prepare the framework. “The next president has the ability to run on these issues and enter the White House with a clear mandate for action and a day-one policy blueprint that they can coalesce congressional leaders around.”
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US lawmakers from both parties have had little success in reining in tech companies over the last few decades, whether on data privacy, monopolistic behavior, social media, or child controls. Current internet safety proposals in front of Congress are limping along, while countries from Australia to China implement online child safety laws.
With that in mind, a number of the Project 2029 proposals are designed to be enacted without congressional approval, using the presidential bully pulpit to do things like call for a phone-free childhood.
“We are at the ‘tobacco moment’ for social media. The science is in, the lawsuits are succeeding, and public support is overwhelming. This agenda gives policymakers no excuse not to act,” said social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
Haidt is among a number of prominent supporters of the framework, including New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten, and Booker, a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
“This blueprint offers several serious ideas for how to rein in these harmful practices, promote more responsible technology, and better protect kids online,” Booker told Semafor in a statement.
For its part, one of the ways the teacher’s union will be assessing which candidates to throw its support behind will be internet safety. “It’s really important that Democratic candidates embrace kids’ safety, because I think that is the vehicle by which you can gauge support for presidential candidates,” Weingarten told Semafor.
Nicholas’s view
Project 2029 proposals are likely to go down in Washington like a lead balloon — at least right now, as the party focuses on the midterms. Along with an extended slate of Democratic presidential candidates, there’s also likely to be a deluge of policy proposals from outside groups as campaigns ramp up and candidates jockey for ideological lanes to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack.
But right now one of the knocks on Democrats (and former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris) is the lack of policy heft to signal to voters what they actually stand for.
What made Project 2025 stand out among the many conservative policy proposals circulating before the 2024 election was its breadth and ambition on policies that even some Republicans thought went too far. But many of its authors ended up in top positions in the Trump administration anyway and ended up implementing many of its provisions.
Notable
- One potential 2028 candidate, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, is set to lay out his own vision on patriotism on July 4, Politico reported.