Project 2029, the small liberal group founded to create a roadmap for any Democrat who takes the White House in the 2028 presidential election, announced its first policy proposal on Monday. While the Democratic base is calling for things like Medicare for All and for every Trump official to be tossed into prison, Project 2029 has a different idea. They want to ban kids from social media.
Project 2029 announced the new proposal, dubbed “Kids Over Clicks,” on the group’s Substack, where they propose age restrictions for “additive apps,” banning anyone under the age of 16. The group also proposes new rules for AI chatbots, including a ban on any that are “cosplaying as licensed professionals,” and a national standard on banning cellphones in schools.
“For generations, government has stepped in to keep addictive products like tobacco and alcohol out of young people’s hands,” the new policy proposal states. “And from cribs to car seats to bike helmets, the physical products in a kid’s life have to pass federal safety tests. It’s time we hold the digital products in their lives to the same standard and implement a comprehensive online safety agenda that puts kids over clicks.”
The group positively quotes Jonathan Haidt, author of the 2024 book The Anxious Generation, among supporters of the proposal. Other supporters include New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, according to Semafor.
While regulation of AI chatbots that try to perform the work of psychologists seems reasonable, and there’s certainly a debate to be had about limiting online harms to children, it’s an odd choice for Project 2029 to come out of the gate with something that’s much more popular with Republicans than Democrats. According to recent polling by Fox News, banning kids from social media is supported by 74% of Republicans and 56% of Democrats. It’s also odd to choose a topic that doesn’t deliver on the retribution that many on the liberal-left are seeking as President Donald Trump continues to do new damage against the U.S. Constitution with each passing day.
The group acknowledges that banning social media for kids can be difficult, stating that the policy is “not a silver bullet” and that kids will obviously use VPNs to get around the ban. But the group compares that to kids using fake IDs to buy beer. Project 2029 compares its proposal to the one recently passed in Florida as well as Australia. Recent research from the British Medical Journal found that 85% of Australian teens had accessed social media in the previous seven days.
Other ideas from Project 2029 include, “Privacy-by-default and safety-by-design standards that close off the unsolicited messaging and recommendation features child predators exploit,” as well as, “A dismantling of the surveillance advertising business model that profits off targeting vulnerable teens.” Noble efforts, indeed, but maybe not the most pressing concern as President Trump dismantles democratic institutions and continues to bomb countries like Iran in what looks to be a new Forever War.
Semafor, which was the first to report on the Project 2029 proposal, notes that the executive director of the organization is Chad Maisel, who used to advise President Joe Biden and Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey. Unsurprisingly, Booker is a prominent supporter of this idea from Project 2029.
Booker is a likely Democratic presidential primary candidate for 2028, and he told Semafor, “This blueprint offers several serious ideas for how to rein in these harmful practices, promote more responsible technology, and better protect kids online.”
Booker is a centrist who often talks a big game against President Trump but voted to confirm four of his cabinet nominees, including Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary, Brooke Rollins as Agriculture Secretary, John Ratcliffe as director of the CIA, and Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. Booker has also voted to confirm lower level Trump nominees, including Charles Kushner as the U.S. ambassador to France.
Charles Kushner is, of course, the father of Jared Kushner, who is actively negotiating with Iran on behalf of the U.S. government all while reportedly soliciting billions of dollars from various countries’ sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East for his private equity firm.
Elected Democrats seem pretty confused about the priorities of the American public, and even though Project 2029 is a relatively small political group, it’s kind of a perfect encapsulation of where establishment liberals are sitting right now in the lead up to the midterms. The country is currently being carved up and robbed blind by Trump’s hucksters. And the first policy proposal from this group is about a social media ban for kids that wouldn’t even achieve its stated goals, given the existence of VPNs and other easy hacks to circumvent age restrictions.
