Utah lawmakers are fast tracking two bills that would require social media companies to age verify users, grant parents access to their kids' accounts, and more
The evidence-free moral panic over social media keeps getting stupider, and when things get particularly stupid about the internet …
TechdirtMike Masnick
Context & Ripple Effects
Utah's legislature is moving two bills that would force social media companies to verify every user's age and hand parents access to their children's accounts — the opening move in what became a signature push by Gov. Spencer Cox. Within weeks he signed both measures into law, making Utah the first state to regulate social media apps this way.
The signing did not end the story: legal analysts flagged serious civil-liberties concerns and hazy enforcement plans, and the approach spread into a broader national wave of child-safety age-gating legislation before Utah extended the model to Apple's and Google's app stores two years later.
First-order effects
Social media companies operating in Utah would have to build age-verification systems for all users and grant parents access to minors' accounts, changing their product and data-handling requirements for one state's market.
Minors' accounts become subject to parental oversight as a condition of using the platforms, shifting control of teen social media use from the platforms' default settings to families.
Second-order effects
Other states follow the template — Utah, South Carolina, and at least seven more propose age-verification bills, first for social media and then for app store operators, forcing Apple and Google into the compliance role.
The expected constitutional challenges over civil liberties and enforcement put courts, not legislatures, in position to decide how far state-level age gating can go.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, age verification migrates from individual platforms to the distribution layer itself — Utah's later law requiring Apple's and Google's app stores to verify ages and obtain parental consent shows the obligation moving upstream to gatekeepers.
Bipartisan backing for child-safety age-gating makes identity checks a structural feature of US internet access, with the unresolved question being whether courts accept the civil-liberties trade-offs the New Yorker reporting flagged.
The trend: US states are building a layered age-verification regime for the internet — starting with social media, extending to app stores — with court challenges set to determine its limits.
A MAJOR security risk I did not discuss “the idea that a law is requiring a website to hand over passwords is absolutely ridiculous. Because no website should be able to access passwords themselves.”
🚨The Utah Leg will hear testimony on HB 311 today at 3:40 pm MST. This is the bill that will force websites to perform age verification on *all* of its users (yes, including you, even if you don't live in UT), and restricts teens from social media. https://le.utah.gov/...
Also a lot of double speak in the bill - platforms can't collect kids' data (to use for the platform) EXCEPT their home addresses and other sensitive data (can only be used for user verification and also must be stored... security risk galore)
And the state of both govt & private sector privacy... isn't great!!! Data breaches happen all the time. Now kids' and parents' addresses will be in that data all over. FWIW bill limits reqs to social media companies w “at least 10,000,000 account holders” https://le.utah.gov/...
To start: I'm just not a fan of bills going after social media that de facto regulate the country. Internet bills in the states have a country-wide and possibly global effect. I don't think it's wise. I can see other arguments here but it's where I stand.
.@SenBlumenthal is new chair of permanent subcommittee on investigations: “to Big Tech and others in industry: you'll be hearing from me very, very soon.” https://twitter.com/...
Utah Republicans continue introducing bizarre censorship bills under the guise of “age verification” and “ZOMG thE chILdRensSSs.” This week's nonsense: platforms need to surrender minors' passwords to their parents or guardians. And NO INTERNET AFTER 6:30 p.m. No, really: https:/…
S.B. 152 sponsored by Sen. @mikemckellutah was released today and focuses on regulating social media companies. This bill gives parents more control to protect children and teens from the harms of social media. Learn more about his bill in the video below.⬇️ #utpol #utleg https:/…
Okay. So I need to get to bed but I also have important thoughts on this Utah bill about kids online. https://libertas.org/... To start, I have a LOT of substantive problems with it but I genuinely think the sponsor and supporters are trying to do the right thing.
From the bill: “social media company shall prohibit a Utah minor account holder from having access to the Utah minor account holder's account during the hours of 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m” — a lot of thoughts here about this not accomplishing what they think it will
This has extreme privacy implications for parents but especially children. This also gets to a larger issue with user/child age/location verification. It's REALLY not a simple task. This is a really great post by @mmasnick explaining https://www.techdirt.com/... @techdirt
“Of course, there are new entrants in the age verification market who say it's no big deal, you'll just have to have your face scanned (for a few seconds, so they can get a “proof of liveness") for every website you visit. How very dystopian."
@mmasnick ... Meet Utah politicians Jordan Teuscher and Mike McKell, both very interested in what your kids are looking up online — and would like to get the government involved in the process. What was that about GOP and small government again? Or does that not apply in the theo…
And @mmasnick has a new piece on the manifest problems with this and other Utah bills https://www.techdirt.com/... @techdirt Both bills require age verification “As we've discussed, the biggest age verification tool around happens to be the one owned by the company behind Pornhub…
Substitute bill for Utah HB 311 (Social Media Regulation) passed out of committee with a favorable recommendation: https://le.utah.gov/... Lots of public comment was on the privacy concerns, and the bill sponsor says he will continue to work on the data privacy concerns raised.
@mmasnick @techdirt “Age Verification Providers Say Don't Worry About California Design Code; You'll Just Have To Scan Your Face For Every Website You Visit” https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick @techdirt [These are the bills I threaded earlier - will make it so your kids give their names and parents' addresses to Facebook Google and .... TikTok which those companies MUST NOT DELETE under the law] https://twitter.com/...
I won't get into penalties but they're a lot, which is standard for bills like these. I'm also not going to get into the regulatory burdens so much here... I always have thoughts there too, but I think you can guess.
I also think the regulatory burdens are dwarfed compared to extremely real security risks. I haven't seen any “age verification” bill that instills confidence in me, and it's just because it's REALLY not a simple task
it's 8pm on a friday so i am not doing a detailed analysis but one of the big changes that stuck out to me was that “acceptable forms of identification” (ex: ID) was removed and establishing “acceptable forms or methods of identification” would be worked out in later rulemaking
@mmasnick @techdirt The depth of the issues here are no joke and can have extreme consequences for kids' privacy. Worse yet, the Utah bill “requires companies to store that information” re @Libertas this is not great!!!!!! https://twitter.com/...
Next: As @Libertas notes... “First, the bill requires social media companies to identify Utah children on the platform by collecting and storing each child's birthdate and their parent's address.” UHHHHHHHHH
Because state-by-state implementation is technologically infeasible, you should expect it will affect all users, of any age, from any location. https://le.utah.gov/...
As we've discussed, the biggest age verification tool around happens to be the one owned by the company behind Pornhub. In other words, Utah politicians may be requiring every Utah resident to be giving their private data over to a porn company. Nice one! https://www.techdirt.com…