Arkansas has passed a new law restricting social media access for minors. According to the bill children below 18 years of age will require parental consent to use platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This sparks the debate around social media regulation and minors’ rights to freedom of speech and expression.
Arkansas new law
On Wednesday, April 12th, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill into law. The law is known as the Social Media Safety Act and will be brought into effect in September. The law defines a social media company as an online platform that lets users create public profiles and interact with each other through digital content. It requires companies that provide such services to verify the ages of all new users. The company should allow users to create accounts only if they are above 18 years. Minors should be required to obtain parents’ consent before allowing them to create an account. However, the law depends on third-party companies to perform age checks and verify users’ personal information, such as a driver’s license or photo ID.
Under the new law social media companies that violate the age verification requirement could face a $2,500 fine for each violation. Retaining identified information of users of the social media site by third-party companies is also prohibited under this law.
Loopholes
The definition of a social network company according to the bill reflects many loopholes in it. The law offers several exceptions due to the amendments to the bill. Companies such as Amazon-owned Twitch, which exclusively offer “interactive gaming, virtual gaming, or an online service that allows the creation and uploading of content” are excluded from the legislation. The law excludes companies that provide professional networking, job skills, learning certifications, and job posting and application services thus excluding Microsoft’s Linkedin.
Another amendment to the bill excludes all social media platforms that feature short video clips, thus saving Snapchat and TikTok. The law also exempts businesses that offer cloud storage services and make less than 25 percent of their revenue from operating a social media platform, which may exclude YouTube and the rest of Google’s business portfolio.
According to the bill, any company that has annual gross revenue under $100 million also enjoys an exemption from the law. Thus the law only seems to target Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Arkansas requires users to be 18 to use social media unless the app is exclusively focused on sharing short form videos of dancing, etc or the company makes less than 25% of revenue from social media.
This exempts TikTok & YouTube. Impressive lobbying.https://t.co/3oDGbx0bwk
— Dare Obasanjo (@Carnage4Life) April 13, 2023
In a statement to CNN, Senator Tyler Dees, a lead co-sponsor of the bill said, “We worked with stakeholders to ensure that email, text messaging, video streaming, and networking websites were not covered by the bill.”
Utah’s Social Media Regulation Act
Arkansa’s new bill can be seen in parallel to Utah’s social media regulation act which also forces social networking sites to verify the age of its users and to obtain parental consent for anyone under the age of 18.
Conclusion
Arkansas’s bill to limit children on social media has proved to be a necessary step to protect minors from the potential harms of social media. This provides a basis for other states to regulate social media platforms.
However, the law faces criticism as people say that it is an infringement of minors’ rights to freedom of speech and expression. Social media should not pose any restrictions as it is an essential tool for people to connect and express themselves, and access information from around the world. Some experts argue that the law may have unintended consequences, such as driving young people to use anonymous or unregulated platforms where they may be more vulnerable to online harm.