Utah becomes the first state to try to limit teens' access to social media under a pair of measures signed into law by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox on Thursday. Other states, such as Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and Louisiana have similar bills in the works.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah became the first state Thursday to sign into law legislation that attempts to limit teenagers’ access to social media sites.
Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a pair of measures that aim to limit when and where children can use social media and stop companies from luring kids to the sites.The laws requires companies to give parents access to their children’s accounts, puts a curfew on social media use from 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a,m. as well as age verification for all Utah residents who want to use social media.
In addition to the parental consent provisions, social media companies would likely have to design new features to comply with parts of the law to prohibit promoting ads to minors and showing them in search results. Search and targeted advertising are two key revenue-generating mechanisms for many social media companies.Cox cited more studies globally “showing that is causation between these poor outcomes, these poor mental health outcomes, and time spent on these social media and these apps.
“We remain very optimistic that we will be able to pass not just here in the state of Utah but across the country legislation that significantly changes the relationship of our children with these very destructive social media apps,” he said.
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