Sen. Josh Hawley wants Arkansas and Utah’s new laws limiting children’s social media usage to create momentum for nationwide rules to reduce digital danger for children under 16 years old.
Arkansas and Utah’s governors recently signed restrictions on children’s social media usage that require age verification and parental consent, with Utah also setting a curfew for when kids can access the platforms.
Mr. Hawley, Missouri Republican, said Wednesday that he is glad that states are “waking up” to social media’s effect on kids. But he said the federal government must take more aggressive steps now.
“We need comprehensive action at the federal level to make a meaningful difference,” Mr. Hawley said in a statement. “Let’s start by studying the harms of social media on kids, prohibiting social media companies from offering accounts to users under age 16, and giving parents the ability to sue Big Tech for the bodily or mental harms their products cause.”
Some states agree new rules are necessary. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed the Social Media Safety Act into law last week, which she said made her state a national leader in protecting children.
“As a parent, this is a very personal thing,” Ms. Sanders said at a press conference last week. “I have a 10-year-old, a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old, and seen the increase that we have not just here in Arkansas but across the country when it comes to things like depression, anxiety, loneliness, suicide rates, particularly among teenage girls.”
Arkansas’ new law bars social media companies from providing accounts to kids under age 18, unless the child has parental consent and their age is verified. It directs social media companies to use third-party vendors to determine kids’ ages, with the vendor being responsible for checking governmental identification for the kids such as driver’s licenses.
The state law also may exempt some tech products that are popular with kids, such as the Google-owned video platform YouTube. The law said media companies that offer subscription content where the primary purpose is not social interaction are not subject to the law’s restrictions.
Defenders of Big Tech disapprove of the state law. The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a nonprofit whose members include Amazon, Apple, Meta and Google, opposes the state restrictions.
CCIA state policy director Khara Boender said her team favors solutions like the tech safety agreements pushed by North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, which are designed to get parents and their children to talk about how to stay safe online.
Meta spokesperson Rachel Holland declined to answer questions about Arkansas and Utah’s laws or the federal proposals.
Ms. Holland said Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, cares about teenagers’ safety and plans to continue working with parents and policymakers to address issues involving kids.
“We’ve developed more than 30 tools to support teens and families, including tools that let parents and teens work together to limit the amount of time teens spend on Instagram, and age verification technology that helps teens have age-appropriate experiences,” Ms. Holland said in a statement. “We automatically set teens’ accounts to private when they join Instagram, and we send notifications encouraging them to take regular breaks.”
Utah’s new social media rules require tech companies to set a curfew on the platform from 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. for users under the age of 18.
Critics say the restrictions are reminiscent of communist China, which created new rules in 2021 that forced companies to limit kids’ access to video games to three hours per week. China required companies to use a real-name-based registration system to allow Chinese regulators to check that it was being followed.
Enforcement of Utah’s curfew does not begin until March 2024. The state law also creates a private right of action for residents, making it easier for people to sue those that fail to comply with the new requirements next year.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox enacted the rules when signing a pair of social media laws in March, on the same day that TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress to dissuade federal lawmakers from pursuing a nationwide ban on his platform.
Mr. Hawley supports banning TikTok, and his efforts to restrict the China-founded app have garnered more support from fellow lawmakers thus far than his legislation aimed at limiting children’s exposure to social media.
He helped the push to remove TikTok from government devices that advanced through the Senate last year and were signed into law by President Biden in December. His proposed nationwide ban on TikTok was blocked last month by Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican.
Mr. Hawley’s Making Age-Verification Technology Uniform, Robust and Effective or the MATURE Act that would require platforms to verify users are age 16 or older is one of several competing proposals for nationwide rules for children online.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said earlier this year that he was working with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, on a bill to protect youngsters from sexual exploitation online.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, have worked on kids’ online safety legislation.
More legislation from the states may come sooner than federal law. Louisiana’s state lawmakers on Wednesday revised the Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation Act that would create restrictions on social media companies resembling Utah’s new laws.
Lawmakers in New Jersey, Ohio and Texas are pushing similar proposals and a Wisconsin state lawmaker has said on Facebook that he also wants new rules for how social media companies engage users who are under 18 years old.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.