By: FOCUS, a Leonine Business
Is it possible to ban kids in the United States from social media? In late 2024 Australia passed a ban on social media use for all children under the age of 16. They are currently testing out the best ways to age verify children on social media to enforce that ban. More recently, New Zealand followed suit with the same intentions. Politicians in France have been discussing a ban on those under the age of 15 from using social media. In the United States, we have seen plenty of age verification-style bills, mostly to verify that social media companies are adequately fulfilling their own policies of keeping those under the age of 13 off their platforms. There is currently no ban on under 13-year-olds use of social media, but there are increased regulations due to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), regarding the data of any children under the age of 13. However, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee advanced KOSA (Kids Off Social Media) in February, the bill which would restrict social media to only those over the age of 13.
Not waiting for the U.S. Congress to act, states are acting on their own. Texas introduced HB 3862, which would ban any minor under the age of 18 from social media. It puts the age verification responsibilities onto the platforms and would consider a company’s knowing failure to comply to be considered a deceptive trade practice. It’s not just a bill that’s been introduced and ignored; this bill could pass the House any day. In Pennsylvania, HB 1430 was recently introduced that would offer protections for minors under the age of 16, including the ability to delete data collected of minors and if violated, platforms would lose the ability to be accessed by minors in the state.
These bills are a small sampling of numerous styles of attempts to protect children online, including age appropriate design bills and age verification bills, both of which have now been struck down in lawsuits in the states on the basis that they would be violations of the First Amendment, and it is likely that any legislation on children’s privacy could also be litigated in the same way. Federal action may be the best way for any sort of social media ban by age in the United States to come to be, but it remains to be seen if Congress will finally want to act on substantial privacy legislation before the states can. FOCUS will continue to monitor children’s data privacy legislation development in legislatures across the country.
