Legislation targeting children’s online safety could lead to blocking streaming services, according to a new study that asserts such a result is an overbroad response unsupported by data and could prove counterproductive to actually protecting kids online.

Is Social Media Legislation Too Broad? An Empirical Analysis, a just-released policy paper from the nonpartisan Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Policy Studies, answers that question in the affirmative.

“If teen mental health motivates the Kids Online Safety Act and similar legislation, then there is little reason to include video streaming in the list of covered platforms,” report author George S. Ford concluded. He cited research on television viewing, arguing that streaming video is essentially the new TV.

Also Read: Senators Push Kids’ Online Safety Bill

As such, the report asserts, it is different from the other social media platforms — for example the social networks and messaging apps targeted by children’s online protection legislation at both the state and federal levels. 

Online gaming is also a target, but the report suggests that aim may also be misplaced.

The report attempts to cull streaming video from the heard of unprofessional video posted on social networks.

Like the traditional TV it is supplanting, streaming video presents “professionally curated” libraries of programming “entirely populated with professionally produced films and shows that take millions of dollars to create and are the product of collaboration between creators, producers, financiers and other stakeholders — often taking years to produce.”

By contrast, it said, social media platforms generally feature user-generated content “including the disturbing and dangerous variety which is the focus of regulatory efforts.”

The report asserts that studies, including the Phoenix Center’s own, have found that use of a computer by children correlates with worse mental health — but not by using it to stream professionally produced video. In fact, it says, moderate video consumption is associated with better teen mental health and not with worsening it.

"The claim that television viewing has no negative association with teen mental health is contrary to 70 years worth of established research on the subject,” said Melissa Henson, vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council.

The council has been highly critical of some of that expensive, professionally produced streaming video content and its impact on kids.

The Phoenix Center has released a new study, backing up a previous study by the company, on the impact of Title II classification of ISPs on telecommunications investment.

The new study, which addresses comments on the study released last month, concludes that without reclassification, investment in total fixed assets would have been about $30 billion more annually, while investment in equipment and property would have been $20 billion more.

"Reclassification has weighed heavily upon the broadband industry for years," said study author and Phoenix Center chief economist Dr. George S. Ford in releasing the new report, Net Neutrality, Reclassification and Investment: A Further Analysis, which updates last month's Net Neutrality, Reclassification and Investment: A Counterfactual Analysis.

"A variety of proper statistical procedures applied to public data confirm sizable declines in investment in Internet networks," Ford added.

Ford said that since 2010 -- when Title II was first proposed by then-FCC chair Julius Genachowski (when ultimately a compromise was struck with ISPs to avoid reclassification) -- investment has been $150 billion to $200 billion less than it would have been without that regulatory overhand and eventual 2015 reclassification.

Phoenix Center chief economist George Ford has taken issue with a story in The Tennessean newspaper in which Chattanooga, Tenn., Mayor Andy Berke touted the economic benefits of its municipal fiber network.

A federal appeals court recently rejected the FCC's preemption of a Tennessee state law limiting the expansion of that city network, but the story preceded that decision and made no mention of it.

Related: FCC Releases Muni Pre-emption Order

The story noted that, over the past three years, "the city’s unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1% from 7.8%, and the wage rate has also been climbing," citing a speech by Berke to the Fiber to the Home Council Americas conference in June.

Berke is quoted in the story as saying the wage rate in Chattanooga is definitely linked to Internet-related jobs and the tech sector.

“Our fiber goes to each and every home,” the story quoted Berke as saying. “We can’t have digital gated communities. If we do that, and only allow fiber to go to some parts of the city, some parts of the state, we will see technology widen the gulf between people as opposed to bridging it."

But Ford, responding to the story via an op ed in The Tennessean, took issue with what he said was Berke's lead claim that "the city’s unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1% from 7.8%."

Ford pointed out that over the same period the nationwide unemployment rate had fallen from 7.5% to 4.7%, saying, "In terms of unemployment, Chattanooga isn’t much different than the nation as a whole.

"Unless the Chattanooga system is having nationwide economic impacts, it’s pretty clear that attributing the unemployment decline to a city broadband network is bogus," Ford said.

He said that looking at statewide unemployment rates, tying the rate drop to the muni broadband net is even more problematic.

"For those cities operating broadband networks, unemployment has fallen by an average of 4.0 points," he said, while "in cities without municipal systems, unemployment has fallen by 4.7 points."