A bill introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly would require minors to have parental consent before downloading social media applications.
HB 1891, filed by State Representative William Lamberth (R-Portland), is called the “Protecting Children from Social Media Act.”
“If the individual is a minor, then the social media company must verify the express parental consent for the minor to become or continue as an account holder,” the text of the bill says. “A social media company shall prohibit a minor from becoming an account holder, or continuing as an account holder, unless the social media company has the express consent of the minor’s parent to allow the minor to become or continue as an account holder.”
The bill would also require social media companies to verify parental consent for existing minor users.
Social media companies like Meta-owned Instagram and TikTok would be affected.
Tennessee officials have been cracking down on social media companies, and chief among those officials is Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
Skrmetti sued Instagram for what he says is knowingly addictive and harmful behavior.
He said his complaint “makes clear that Meta knew its platforms were hurting kids and made a very clear decision to choose money over the mental health of its young users.”
Speaking with The Tennessee Star last week, Skrmetti elaborated.
“It’s extremely damaging, and we need to make sure that kids aren’t being put in a position where they’re constantly striving for an ideal they’ll never reach, feeling like they’re failures, inherently, because of the way God made them,” Skrmetti told The Star. “Kids are wonderful and kids are vulnerable, and we need to protect them from that sort of self-image that can cause real, lasting, and potentially irrevocable harm.”
“In an ideal world, you would be able to make Meta and all of the other platforms out there reduce the danger to kids,” he said. “That’s not saying we should be micromanaging the platforms, the government has a very limited role, but when there’s clear damage being done we can say stop or there will be consequences and make them include safeguards to protect kids from some of these issues.”
Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X / Twitter.
