Jim Steyer
Parent Advocates · Common Sense Media
Founded Common Sense Media in 2003, now one of the most-cited ratings and advocacy organizations for kids' media.
Jim Steyer founded Common Sense Media in 2003 to give parents independent, age-based ratings and reviews of movies, TV, apps, and games. Over more than two decades the organization has grown into one of the most widely cited sources on children's media and technology use, publishing its own research alongside its review database and advocating for stronger protections for young people online. Common Sense Media's census reports on kids' media habits are regularly referenced by researchers, journalists, and policymakers. Steyer's organization has become a reference point for parents trying to make informed choices about what their children watch and use.
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WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (10)
BOOKS
The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Effect on Our Children
In this book, published the year after he founded Common Sense Media, Jim Steyer argues that American children's exposure to television, movies, advertising, and early internet content had outpaced the ability of parents, schools, and regulators to guide it. Drawing on his earlier work founding the child-advocacy group Children Now, Steyer describes media content and marketing practices as factors associated with children's attitudes toward violence, sexuality, and consumption, and calls for independent content ratings, media-literacy education, and industry accountability rather than blanket censorship. TechKids Foundation includes this book as an early, foundational statement of the parent-advocate case that launched Common Sense Media, an organization referenced throughout this library.
Talking Back to Facebook: The Common Sense Guide to Raising Kids in the Digital Age
Published a decade after he founded Common Sense Media, this parenting guide lays out Jim Steyer's framework of three risk areas he associates with children's growing use of social media, texting, and mobile devices: strained parent-child relationships, difficulty children have limiting their own use, and loss of privacy. Rather than recommending outright bans, Steyer offers age-by-age guidance for parents to set expectations and model behavior, while arguing that platforms bear responsibility for design choices he links to cyberbullying and oversharing among kids. TechKids Foundation includes this book as Steyer's most widely circulated parent-facing text, and a source he later drew on in congressional testimony about platform accountability.
TESTIMONY
Written Testimony Before the Senate Commerce Committee: Rethinking the Children's Television Act for a Digital Media Age
Six years after founding Common Sense Media, Jim Steyer testified to the Senate Commerce Committee that the 1990 Children's Television Act needed updating for an on-demand, internet-connected media environment, and asked Congress to fund media-literacy education and support independent, third-party content ratings alongside industry self-regulation. He cited a Common Sense-commissioned analysis of more than 170 studies conducted by researchers at Yale, the NIH, and California Pacific Medical Center, which found the large majority linked heavier media exposure to negative outcomes such as childhood obesity and lower academic achievement, without claiming media as the sole cause. He also described a Common Sense review finding frequent alcohol, violence, and erectile-dysfunction advertising during NFL broadcasts watched by millions of children weekly. TechKids Foundation includes this as an early record of Steyer's advocacy for media-literacy funding and independent ratings.
Written Testimony Before the Senate Commerce Committee: Consumer Perspectives: Policy Principles for a Federal Data Privacy Framework
Ten years after his 2009 testimony, Jim Steyer returned to the Senate Commerce Committee to argue for a federal consumer-privacy law modeled on the California Consumer Privacy Act, which Common Sense Media had sponsored. He testified that children face heightened privacy risks, citing Common Sense's own survey research that large majorities of parents and teens want clearer data-collection disclosures and opt-in consent before data is sold, and pointed to outside research finding many child-directed mobile apps may not meet federal children's-privacy-law standards. Steyer characterized manipulative platform design and behavioral ad targeting aimed at children as practices that should be off-limits regardless of consent, and argued any federal law should set a floor, not a ceiling, on state protections. TechKids Foundation includes this as Steyer's most detailed public testimony on the CCPA's origins and children's data privacy.
Written Testimony Before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee: Holding Big Tech Accountable: Targeted Reforms to Tech's Legal Immunity
Weeks after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's disclosures, Jim Steyer testified before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that platform engagement-design features — which he said create a reward-seeking feedback loop for kids and teens — are associated with amplified exposure to content promoting disordered eating and self-harm, and cited a TikTok 'blackout challenge' that outside reporting linked to the deaths of several children. He argued that outside research and leaked internal company data, not voluntary industry action, show platforms permitting this kind of algorithmic amplification, and urged Congress to narrow Section 230's liability shield and pass legislation restricting manipulative design, harmful algorithms, and overly commercial content aimed at kids and teens. TechKids Foundation includes this as Steyer's most detailed congressional testimony connecting specific platform design choices to documented child-safety harms.
STUDIES
Statement on Growing U.S. Senate Support for the Kids Online Safety Act
In this statement, issued as the Kids Online Safety Act neared a Senate floor vote, Jim Steyer welcomed what he called a 'significant step forward' after years of Common Sense Media's advocacy for the bill, which would require platforms to offer minors additional safety settings and limit certain design features the organization associates with compulsive use and exposure to harmful content. He argued that technology-industry trade associations should not be trusted to self-regulate on child-safety questions, and urged the House of Representatives to act once the Senate passed its version of the bill. TechKids Foundation includes this statement as a representative example of Steyer's ongoing public pressure campaign for federal youth-online-safety legislation.
Commentary: To Protect Kids Online, New York Has More Work to Do
Co-authored with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, this op-ed argues New York lawmakers should build on the state's existing school-phone restrictions by passing two further measures: warning labels disclosing platforms' association with mental-health risks for young users, modeled on existing tobacco and alcohol warnings, and new guardrails on AI systems, including restrictions aimed at AI-generated child sexual abuse material. The authors argue technology companies built engagement-maximizing products faster than lawmakers regulated them, and they press Governor Hochul and state legislative leaders to advance both proposals during budget negotiations. TechKids Foundation includes this as Steyer's most recent (as of this writing) direct policy advocacy specifically addressing AI-era child-safety legislation.
Common Sense Media Launches Youth AI Safety Institute
This press release announces Common Sense Media's launch of the Youth AI Safety Institute, an independent research and testing body intended to evaluate AI products used by children against safety benchmarks, comparable in concept to vehicle crash-test ratings. Founder and CEO Jim Steyer is quoted arguing that AI is reshaping childhood and adolescence before regulators, parents, or companies have the evidence needed to judge what is safe for kids. The release describes the Institute's planned work: publishing open-source evaluation tools developers can use, independently testing AI products marketed to or used by children, and publishing results for public accountability, while stating the Institute intends to maintain editorial independence from its corporate and philanthropic funders. TechKids Foundation includes this as the founding document of Steyer's most recent institutional initiative, focused specifically on generative-AI-era child-safety risks.
Leaders Gather for Inaugural Copenhagen Youth AI Summit as Common Sense Media Brings Youth AI Safety Institute to Europe
This press release covers the European launch event for Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Institute, held at Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish Parliament, and co-headlined by Jim Steyer, European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Hillary Clinton. Steyer is quoted saying European parents believe AI will reshape their children's lives as profoundly as the internet did, and that they do not trust the companies building it to protect children's safety without outside oversight. The release positions the summit as extending the Institute's U.S.-launched testing and accountability model to European policymakers and companies. TechKids Foundation includes this as documentation of Steyer's advocacy work reaching an international, multi-government audience.