Massachusetts Senate Votes To Block ‘Addictive’ Social Media Features for Minors

The Massachusetts Senate stopped short of a total ban on social media for children in a bill approved Thursday, voting instead to block what members consider addictive features such as algorithmic feeds, auto-play videos, and endless content scrolls.The state’s House of Representatives passed a bill in April that would have totally prohibited children under the age of 14 from accessing social media.“A social media ban for children under 14 is not extreme, it is responsible,” the assistant majority leader, Representative Alice Peisch, said at the time. “Technology will continue to play a powerful role in our society, but it must not come at the expense of our children’s ability to learn, to connect with others, and to develop into healthy adults,” she added.A coalition of LGBTQ groups came out against the total ban, saying it would cut off children from online support groups. Governor Maura Healey has also advocated for default settings for children instead of outright bans. She has proposed a two-hour daily limit for children to consume social media.Privacy rights experts warned separately that the age requirements could in themselves create privacy risks, arguing that any verification system could be hacked to expose information about users, including home addresses and photos.The Senate’s less extreme version of the bill, passed Thursday on a 38 to 2 vote, would not require any age verification to join or access content on social media platforms. However adults would be required to verify their age in order to activate “addictive” social media features.“Many people still want to be on social media and not receive these addictive responses,” the bill’s principal sponsor, Senator Cindy Creem, said as the Senate began several hours of debate on the measure.The bill would also prohibit social media companies from sending notifications to minors between certain hours to ensure social media doesn’t interfere with teenagers’ sleep. “You’re never ‘caught up’ in the current social media echo system,” Ms. Creem said.Senator Julian Cyr supported the legislation. “In this bill we aim to be honest about human behavior, to be honest about the realities of technological advancement, and honest about the reality that young people and people of all ages find online,” Mr. Cyr said.“We don’t want to have excessive restrictions,” Mr. Cyr added.One Republican questioned why the bill was needed when there are already safeguards available to parents who elect to use them.Senator Peter Durant said there are time restrictions, bedtime features, and notification controls already built into smartphones and platforms. He suggested that it would make more sense to have a bill that would require safety features to be more prominent and easier for parents to use.“The parents, in this bill, seem to rank below the attorney general’s office and below the platform’s compliance department,” Mr. Durant said. “We’re being asked to pass a children’s safety bill that goes out of its way to cut parents out in many instances and say that they can’t control what their children see.”The Senate version of the bill now goes back to the lower chamber for members to decide whether the safeguards are sufficient in the absence of a complete ban.

Massachusetts Senate Votes To Block ‘Addictive’ Social Media Features for Minors

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