North Carolina lawmakers advanced a bill Tuesday that would ban social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for children who are 14 and 15 years old.
The companies that own social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram said they already have a minimum age of 13 to create an account, in compliance with federal law. But some children can easily get around the bans, both with and without their parents' consent, and many younger kids have social media accounts.
House Bill 301 would hold the social media companies responsible for stopping them, with the state fining them up to $50,000 for each time a younger teen slips through the cracks and is able to set up an account against the rules. Families of those teens would also be allowed to sue the companies over violations, for up to $10,000.
The bill advanced out of a House judiciary committee Tuesday. It goes next tothe House Commerce & Economic Development Committee.
Bill advocate and North Carolina Rep. Jeff Zenger on Tuesday spoke about shielding children from predators and the importance of setting limits for parents in monitoring screen time.
"As a parent who has fought the battle of screen time with four kids who are now all in their 20s, it is a raging battle," Zenger said. "So the idea was to put something up that would be a backstop for parents so that they could help regulate this and help kind of stand with this battle."
Zenger said he has received widespread support from others on the idea.
Rieghlah Collins with the ACLU of North Carolina argued against the bill, poiting out it would deny children access to information.
"All U.S. residents, including minors, have First Amendment rights to access information and express themselves, so you can’t wholesale kick them off social media today,” Collins said. "The internet is our primary marketplace of ideas."
Lobbyists for companies that own TikTok, Facebook and Instagram previously didn’t provide comments on the proposal when reached by WRAL News.
The use of social media among teens is nearly universal in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. Up to 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with more than one-third saying they use social media "almost constantly," according to the Pew Research Center.
Not all websites in which people can interact with others would be subject to the bans.
Email sites, news websites with comment sections, and others — such as apps that let people share texts, photos or videos with individuals or groups, but not publicly — would also be exempt from the ban.
Social media companies have been targeted by North Carolina officials in the past. North Carolina and 32 other states last year sued Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram, alleging that the social media company has contributed to a youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on its Instagram and Facebook platforms to addict children to its platforms.
Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein was the state’s attorney general when the lawsuit was filed. As governor, he would have to sign off on any North Carolina bill restricting social media use. When the lawsuit was filed, Stein said Meta lied to parents about the risks its social media platforms posed against children.
Meta said at the time that it was committed to providing teens with safe experiences online, and that it had introduced more than two dozen tools to support teens and their families.
Some measures social platforms have taken to address concerns about children's mental health can be easily circumvented. TikTok introduced a default 60-minute time limit for users younger than 18, but many users were able to simply enter a passcode to keep watching after the limit was reached.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
