Utah becomes the first state with a law that could limit teens’ social media use

Sitting before a handful of lawmakers, policy experts and stakeholders, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Thursday signed into law some of the country’s first and most restrictive social media regulations.

The bills, lawmakers say, are described as “tools” for parents, giving them greater control over their children’s social media use, while mandating that companies like Meta or TikTok implement and change certain policies aimed at minors. One of the most notable changes is that all Utahns will soon have to show some form of identification to use social media.

Summed up by Cox, the legislation “significantly changes the relationship of our children with these very destructive social media apps.”

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Sponsored by Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, SB152 would enact the Utah Social Media Regulation Act, requiring a social media company to verify the age of a Utah resident before opening an account. For prospective users under 18 years old, the bill directs the social media company to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian before the account is live.

And HB311, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, prohibits social media companies from using a “design or feature that causes a minor to have an addiction to the company’s social media platform.”

Both bills passed with broad support in the House and Senate.

“These are first of their kind bills in the United States. And that’s huge that Utah is leading out on this effort,” Cox said. “We have lots of states that are interested and I know we’re all having conversations with other governors, other legislators and other states. I suspect that you will see lots of bills like these moving forward.”

But the bills have been criticized by First Amendment and online privacy experts, who say it’s unlikely Utah will be able to enact such regulations without seeing a court challenge.

“Conditioning these rights on a parent giving prior consent is a huge First Amendment problem. Minors have First Amendment rights, and they are limited in more circumstances than for adults, but still only in very narrow circumstances,” said Ari Cohn, a First Amendment lawyer based in Chicago, noting those circumstances almost entirely revolve around sexually explicit material.

“The government is actually saying you have to provide your identity to speak in the first place on social media,” Cohn said.

Cohn and Cox previously sparred on Twitter, ironically, with Cohn citing those same First Amendment concerns, and Cox responding: “You are wrong and I’m excited to prove it.”

Breaking down SB152 and HB311

Titled Social Media Regulation Amendments, SB152 gives social media companies a list of requirements, should a parent consent to their child creating an account. The law instructs companies to:

• Prohibit minors from messaging certain accounts.

• Restrict the minor’s account from showing up in search results, unless the two accounts are linked through a friending feature.

• Shield the minor from advertising, including targeted ads, or promote targeted content or accounts.

• Limit the amount of hours a minor can access their account, which is “subject to parental or guardian direction.”

• Give the parent or guardian access to the minor’s content and interactions on their account.

The law also directs the Utah Division of Consumer Protection to receive and investigate violations of the law, and impose fines and civil penalties up to $2,500 for each violation. The division will also publish an annual report “evaluating the liability and enforcement provisions of this chapter,” the bill reads.

The law includes a fiscal note of roughly $280,000 in one-time funds and $220,000 in ongoing funds for the division to investigate and enforce violations.

And HB311, titled Social Media Usage Amendments, seeks to curb what Teuscher and other lawmakers say are “addictive” algorithms that cause kids to go down “that rabbit hole where they feel anxious because they don’t have their phone next to them.”

It permits the Division of Consumer Protection to audit records of a social media company to determine its compliance, and paves the way for a civil penalty of $250,000 for each “practice, design, or feature shown to have caused addiction.”

“Addiction” is defined in the bill as “use of a social media platform that ... indicates the user’s substantial preoccupation or obsession with, or the user’s substantial difficulty to cease or reduce use of, the social media platform; and causes physical, mental, emotional, developmental, or material harms to the user.”

The bill is expected to cost $181,000 in one-time funds and $220,000 in ongoing funds for enforcement.

The regulations spelled out in both bills will take place on March 1, 2024.

‘We should step in’

Both Cox, McKell and Teuscher on Thursday pointed to the dire mental health situation for minors, which prompted the legislation.

“I had been doing some research on my own, worried about my own kids and the impact that social media was having on them, the impact it was having on me and looking at the research that was out there,” said Cox