For Quinton Hayes Jr. and his classmates, social media “is where a lot of our lives happen.”
The 12-year-old middle school student from Bloomington said that includes having fun, talking with friends — and bullying.
“It follows you home,” he said, “onto your phone, into your head.”
Hayes described how his friend was affected when classmates shared his private pictures on social media platforms.
“When things happen like that, it can really hurt your mental health,” Hayes said. “Kids start feeling anxious, alone, or like they aren’t good enough.”
That’s why Hayes supports proposed legislation that would restrict kids and teens from creating social media accounts.
Two similar bills, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Marty Joe Murray of St. Louis and Republican state Rep. Don Mayhew of Crocker, would require social media platforms to implement age verification processes and make it illegal for those companies to target minors with advertising or addictive design elements.
Another bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Melissa Schmidt of Eldridge, would mandate age verification for artificial intelligence chatbots. It would also make it unlawful to design, develop or make a chatbot publicly available that encourages violence or self-harm, or solicits minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct.
Schmidt said her bill would protect children from chatbots that seem to offer “companionship” but can misguide young people by reinforcing every thought that they share.
“AI companions are designed to blur the line between human and machine, and children and youth are unable to identify those lines,” Schmidt said.
The bills follow a nationwide trend of states aiming to address youth mental health concerns with laws targeting social media platforms. At least 17 states have enacted laws restricting minors’ access to social media or “addictive feeds,” according to the Age Verification Providers Association.
Australia this year banned social media accounts for youth under 16, requiring companies to take “reasonable steps” to keep kids off their platforms.
But state laws have faced legal challenges from tech industry groups who argue they censor free speech and endanger young people’s data privacy. Lawsuits by NetChoice, a trade association whose members include Meta and TikTok, have blocked age verification laws in Arkansas and Ohio, while litigation by the Computer and Communications Industry Association has challenged or halted legislation in Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Utah, and California.
The Missouri House this month passed a bill that would require websites containing at least one-third pornography or other “adult content” to verify that users are at least 18 before granting access. The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Sherri Gallick of Belton, mirrors a rule introduced by the Missouri attorney general’s office last year, which caused the porn industry’s largest website, Pornhub, to shut down access in the state.
Mayhew told lawmakers during a committee hearing Monday that the dangers of social media demand action, citing research showing that social media use among adolescents is associated with increased mental health challenges, self-harm, and suicide.
“We have to do something,” he said, “and if we have to do it state by state, then so be it.”
Murray’s bill would prohibit young people under 14 from creating social media accounts and require anyone 14 to 16 years old to show the “verified consent” of a parent or guardian to start an account. Mayhew’s bill would require parental consent for 16- and 17-year-olds and bar those under 16 from holding separate accounts from a parent or guardian.
Schmidt’s bill would require owners and operators of AI chatbots to allow access only to adults.
All three bills would require platforms to deactivate or terminate accounts of minors who are too young or haven’t shown parental consent.
Both social media bills would prohibit the use of “infinite scroll” mechanisms or auto-playing content without time limits, identifying these as “addictive or manipulative design features.” Murray’s bill would ban the use of targeted advertising on all minors, while Mayhew’s bill would restrict the use of advertising and sponsored content only to youth under 16.
Murray said it’s “unacceptable” for social media companies to use these methods to get young people to use their products.
“If we look back to the way that the cigarette and tobacco industry targeted young people, the same logic applies for social media,” Murray said. “They believe that if they can get children hooked on these sites early, they’ll have lifelong users for their entire lives.”
Lawmakers discussed how the legislation could protect kids’ data privacy while allowing social media companies to put effective age verification processes in place.
While Mayhew said his bill was designed to make use of government IDs that most young people get at 16, Murray’s bill would require social media companies to use other methods, such as face scans.
Mayhew said penalty provisions in their legislation would pressure companies to develop more effective age verification techniques.
“They are going to be hyper-sensitive to that issue because this would open them up to litigation,” Mayhew said. “We all know from history that that is the method by which we can have corporations police themselves.”
And he said social media companies have the capability to make their platforms safer for kids.
“If this were to pass in Missouri, they will get a group of their smartest data scientists to say, ‘How can we make sure this doesn’t open us up to that litigation?’” Murray said.
Murray and Mayhew’s bills both authorize the attorney general to enforce the proposed measures by seeking penalties up to $50,000 per violation. Parents or guardians of minors hurt by violations would be able to sue for damages.
Schmidt’s bill would impose fines up to $100,000 for designing, developing, or making available AI chatbots “posing a risk” of encouraging minors to engage in sexual conduct, including the creation of explicit images, or anyone to engage in violence.
Asked what his classmates would think about a social media ban, Hayes said that at first “everybody would be mad.”
But most kids, he said, would eventually come around.
This story was originally published by Missouri Independent, part of States Newsroom.
