AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A push in Texas to ban social media accounts for kids underneath 18 has failed after lawmakers didn’t take a key vote on creating one of many nation’s hardest restrictions aimed toward protecting minors off platforms similar to TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.
The invoice, which already handed the GOP-controlled state Home, sought to go additional than a Florida social media ban for minors underneath 14. Australia banned social media accounts for anybody underneath 16.
The legislative session ends Monday and early momentum behind the Texas measure slowed on the eleventh hour within the state Senate as lawmakers face a weekend deadline to ship payments to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott has not mentioned publicly whether or not he supported the proposed ban, which was opposed by tech commerce teams and critics who known as it it an unconstitutional restrict on free speech.
“There was no invoice filed this session that will have protected extra youngsters in additional methods than this one,” state Rep. Jared Patterson, a Republican carrying the measure, mentioned Thursday.
In a put up on the social media platform X, Patterson blamed pushback from unnamed “billionaires” as a part of the rationale for the invoice’s failure. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who controls the state Senate, mentioned Wednesday earlier than the deadline he didn’t know if the invoice had the assist wanted to go the GOP-controlled chamber, and it was in the end by no means introduced up for a vote.
Patterson mentioned he’ll attempt once more when the Texas Legislature meets in 2027.
Many tech firms have established a presence in Texas, together with X, which is owned by Elon Musk.
Earlier this week, Abbott signed into legislation a separate measure requiring Apple and Google to confirm the age of on-line app retailer customers, in addition to parental consent to obtain apps and make in-app purchases for customers underneath 18. Utah passed an identical invoice earlier this 12 months.
The proposed Texas ban aimed toward minors was the most recent transfer in a rising bipartisan push nationwide to handle the impacts of social media on the well-being of kids. Critics accuse platforms of utilizing addictive features to lure kids onto their web site and maintain them there, and of not doing sufficient to curb violent or age-inappropriate content material, or on-line abuse.
Almost half of American youngsters say they’re on-line “consistently” regardless of concerns about the effects of social media and smartphones on their psychological well being, in response to a December 2024 report revealed by the Pew Analysis Middle.
The American Psychological Association has known as on tech firms and lawmakers to guard kids’s psychological well being, arguing that social media platforms are “significantly dangerous” to younger individuals who can’t disengage from websites and battle with impulse management.
States and nations have handed numerous measures to handle the issue, and a few have run into authorized challenges.
A federal choose in 2024 temporarily blocked Utah’s first-in-the-nation legislation requiring social media firms to test the ages of all customers and place restrictions on accounts belonging to minors.
California, which is house to a number of the largest tech firms on the planet, will make it unlawful for social media platforms to knowingly present addictive feeds to kids with out parental consent beginning in 2027. And New York state permits dad and mom to block their kids from getting social media posts advised by a platform’s algorithm.
