Arkansas Requiring Parental Permission For Kids To Use Social Media

Topline

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed a bill into law Wednesday barring social media platforms from letting children under 18 open new accounts without parental consent, becoming the second state to impose restrictions on teens’ social media use amid growing mental health and safety concerns.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed into law a bill requiring teens to obtain parental … [+] consent to create new social media accounts.

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Key Facts

Under Arkansas’ Social Media Safety Act, which goes into effect on September 1 any social media platform that makes more than $100 million in annual revenue must confirm new users are over 18 or have permission from their parents to create an account.

Existing accounts will not be affected under the law, but social media companies will need to use third-party services to verify new account holders’ personal information, including photo IDs or driver’s licenses.

Sanders, who signed the bill after Arkansas’ Republican-led House and Senate both voted overwhelmingly to pass it earlier this month, had warned social media “can have a massive negative impact on our kids.”

Tangent

Arkansas’ new law comes less than a month after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed a similar pair of bills keeping teens under 18 from using social media platforms without written permission from their parents or guardians. Utah’s law—which takes effect next March—goes further than the Arkansas bill, requiring platforms to impose a strict 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. curfew when minors are locked out of their accounts (unless their parents disable the feature) and granting parents access to their kids’ posts and messages.

Contra

Utah’s restrictions, however, have faced criticism from both teens and academics, including American University School of Education Dean Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, who argued the restriction could block teens from communicating with friends online and hinder “creative expression.” Evan Greer, director of the advocacy group Fight for the Future, told Vox Utah’s bills also “undermine the constitutional and human rights” of teens in the state.

Key Background

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called for restrictions on social media companies, arguing increased levels of screen have exacerbated a mental health crisis among teens—a connection shown in multiple studies linking social media use to increased anxiety and depression. In 2021, the Wall Street Journal obtained internal files from Meta—then known as Facebook—that found the company had internal studies showing Instagram’s negative impact on some teenager users’ mental health. Last month, a bipartisan House committee grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew over both national security concerns around the platform’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance as well as its content moderation policies. Multiple representatives slammed Chew for violent and suicide-related videos, as well as so-called challenge videos that have gone viral on the site, including one forcing people to choke themselves until they blackout. Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) argued, “your technology is literally leading to death,” though Chew claimed TikTok uses protections designed for younger users (Bytedance and TikTok had been sued over the death of a 10-year-old who died participating in the blackout challenge).

Surprising Fact

President Joe Biden also called on lawmakers to “strengthen privacy protections” for children on social media sites in his State of the Union address, specifically pushing for bans on personal data collection and targeted advertising directed at children.

What To Watch For

Similar bills have been proposed in Connecticut and Ohio, requiring teens under 16 to obtain parental consent to log onto social media sites.

Arkansas Requiring Parental Permission For Kids To Use Social Media—Joining Utah