Texas is poised to become the second state to enact an across-the-board ban on social media for minors before its state legislative session ends in a little over a week.
Advocates on both sides of the issue have said the bill would be the strictest state-level regulation yet on social media platforms if enacted. And it comes as other states across the country are considering similar restrictions amid fierce debates over free speech and whether these sorts of policies are the most effective way to achieve supporters’ primary goal: improving young Americans’ mental health.
If enacted, Texas’ bill would put in place vast new restrictions that explicitly bar every Texas resident under 18 years old from signing up for and using “a social media platform.”
The legislation would require all social media platforms to verify the age of all people setting up an account. It would allow parents to request that the platforms delete their child’s social media account — and require the companies to do so as well within 10 days. Violations are defined in the bill as “deceptive trade practices,” meaning that they would be both punishable with fines from the state’s attorney general and subject to lawsuits for financial damages.
The Texas House has passed the bill and the state Senate is expected to as well. Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican, said that “safety and online privacy for Texas children remain a priority” for Abbott and that he would “thoughtfully review any legislation sent to his desk that seeks to accomplish these goals.”
Such laws have run into major legal challenges by groups contending that such restrictions amount to free speech violations. And even many high-profile supporters of social media restrictions for minors say that bans for young people may not be the ideal policy solution.
“Something needs to be done,” said Dr. Mitch Prinstein, chief of psychology strategy and integration for the American Psychological Association (APA). “These are things that we know don’t fit with the adolescent brain — things like endless scroll and ‘like counts.’”
“But an age ban — that’s like delaying the age of driving but not having any driver’s ed,” Prinstein added. “Why just delay the age and then send kids out for slaughter later?”
The APA has repeatedly urged legislators to be more aggressive in trying to protect adolescents’ mental health, but have advocated for policies more tailored than age restrictions.
A variety of states have recently plowed forward with social media bills centered around age. And all of them — including Texas’ — have garnered bipartisan support.
Most prominently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, last year signed a bill prohibiting children younger than 14 from joining social media platforms, becoming the first state to enact such a ban. The law also required that teenagers who are 14 or 15 years old have a parent’s consent before they join a platform.
Florida’s ban was allowed to stand after a federal judge in March ruled against requests to block the law, though the legal fight against it continues.
The law reignited a battle among First Amendment and civil liberties advocates over whether such bans amount to restrictions on free speech.
“We see this as a First Amendment issue, and, as these bills have generally been written, a serious First Amendment problem, because they essentially cut off an entire universe of information, of conversation from [young] people,” said Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
Over the past two years, at least nine other states have enacted significant restrictions on the use of social media, including requiring parental consent or age verification. More broadly, lawmakers in 27 states have attempted this year to advance bills that in some way seek to address or regulate minors’ use of social media, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
For example, the Nebraska Legislature approved a bill last week that would require parental consent for anyone under 18 to open a social media account. State House lawmakers in Connecticut last week narrowly approved a bill that would require the same.
Minnesota lawmakers have debated several measures this year, including a tax on companies that mine data on the state’s residents and proposed mental health warning labels for social media platforms.
And last year, lawmakers in Georgia, Tennessee and Louisiana passed bills requiring parental consent for anyone under 16 to open a social media account.
Many of these proposals have faced serious legal hurdles. And similar bills in previous years — including in states like Ohio, Arkansas and California — faced major legal challenges, with federal judges striking them down on the grounds of free speech violations.
In addition, a social media curfew in Utah that banned the use of platforms for minors between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. enacted in 2023 was scaled down and replaced with more lenient restrictions last year after the original law faced a barrage of lawsuits.
NetChoice, a tech trade group whose members include Meta, Google and X that is staunchly opposed to most social media regulations, has been involved in litigation in those three states and many others where lawmakers have passed legislation seeking to curb social media access to minors. And the group signaled it was poised to do so again with Texas’ bill if it passes.
Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s director of litigation, called proposals like the one in Texas “censorship regimes masquerading as online safety laws”
Each bill, Marchese said in an email, “puts the First Amendment rights of all Americans at risk, online and offline.”
Social media companies have said they’ve made several changes to their platforms that help protect minors.
Since 2023, Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) started showing teens a notification when they spend 20 minutes on Facebook; added parental supervision tools allowing parents to schedule breaks from their teens from Facebook; launched a new teen-centric product on Instagram allowing parents to help limit the content their kids see on the platform; began hiding more results in Instagram’s search tool related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders; and launched nighttime “nudges” that encourage teens to close the app when it’s late.
TikTok, over the last five years, has instituted a variety of age-restricted features for users under 18, including limits on direct messaging and livestreams — as well as by-default private account settings for users between 13 and 15. The platform also instituted in 2023 a 60-minute daily screen time limit for users under 18, and, two years earlier, restricted nighttime notifications for some teenagers. In addition, the platform offers parents certain controls over their kids’ usage, including screen time management and what kind of content they are able to see.
Spokespeople for Meta and TikTok declined to comment on bills limiting the use of social media platforms for young people. A spokesperson for X didn’t respond to questions.
The broader issue has also grabbed the attention of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. A bipartisan group of senators, led by Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, introduced earlier this year the Kids Off Social Media Act, which would ban social media platforms from allowing kids under 13 to create or maintain accounts. The bill, which would also require social media companies to delete the existing accounts of kids 13 and under, has seen little movement since being introduced in February.
Meanwhile, federal lawmakers, following the lead of state legislatures, have also turned their attention in recent months to the growing movement to restrict the use of cellphones by kids and teenagers in schools.
Last month, Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., introduced a bill that would deliver funding for school districts to explore putting in place such restrictions. That effort comes as an increasing number of states have enacted laws or considered bills to ban cellphones in schools.
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