Texas Bans Kids From Social Media Without Mom and Dad's Ok
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Texas passed a sweeping new social media law Wednesday banning users under the age of 18 from accessing social media sites or creating accounts without first obtaining parental content. The law, which targets social networks but is written in a way that could include a large swath of online services, is the latest in a string of state bills attempting to legally age-gate the internet.
The law, dubbed the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment, (HB18) will require “digital services providers” to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian before allowing a user under the age of 18 to open an account. Parents who do grant consent would then be able to request access to a wide swath of the minor’s data from the social networks. The service providers are required to create “a simple and easily accessible method” to fulfill those requests. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law Wednesday.
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Though critics have raised privacy concerns over the amount of data access granted to parents in these types of laws, Texas state representative Shelby Slawson, who’s also the law’s lead author, said that level of insight was necessary to mitigate perceived harms from platforms.
“Our children are experiencing all manner of harms via overexposure to digital platforms and predatory algorithms, manifesting in increased rates of self-harm, suicide, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, human trafficking and other mental health issues,” Slawson said in a statement earlier this year.
Under the new law, parents and guardians are given broad power over minors online accounts. As part of the law, a minor’s verified parents can review and download personal identifying information associated with the minor and likewise request its deletion. Parents or guardians can also request service providers ban targeted advertising toward the minor and prevent them from making online purchases.
Digital services, as described in the legislation, refers to “a website, an application, a program, or software that collects or processes personal identifying information with Internet connectivity.” That would apply to social media sites like Instagram and TikTok but could also encompass a vast array of other online services that simply require users to create accounts. State agencies, small businesses, financial institutions, and higher education institutions are exempt from the requirements. Minors who already created social media accounts prior to the law’s passage won’t be required to retroactively obtain parental consent.
The law would force service providers to verify the identity of the parent or guardian and their relationship to the minor they are providing consent for. Service providers would also be required to “develop and implement a strategy” to prevent known minors on the site from being exposed to “harmful content.” Harmful content here refers to posts that promote or glorify self-harm, substance abuse, stalking, harassment, child sexual exploitation, or “grooming.” Service providers would be required to use “filtering technology” to prevent minors from seeing that supposedly harmful content.
Internet companies found in violation of the legislation are subject to lawsuits from the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton. It’s unclear exactly how the attorney general would enforce those penalties in practice though. Paxton, who was impeached last month and is awaiting trial, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tech companies like Meta and Google, which both run major social media services have strongly opposed the Texas legislation. Representatives for both companies spoke out against the legislation during a committee hearing earlier this year warned it could undermine already existing safeguards for young users and potentially force the companies to collect even more sensitive information for identity verification.
“There’s a very real and complex challenge because inevitably people move toward asking for IDs which creates all kinds of access to information that you might not really want us to have,” Meta’s vice president of safety Antigone Davis said during the committee hearing earlier this year, per Axios.
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