Legislation that would severely limit the ability of children in Indiana to access social media accounts passed its first legislative hurdle on Wednesday. The move comes amid growing concerns about social media’s impact on children’s health.
Senate Bill 199 would limit children under the age of 14 from owning or keeping social media accounts. Teenagers aged 14-17 could obtain access to social media but only with parental permission.
The bill would require social media companies to create an age verification process for all social media users in Indiana. It also mandates curfew for teens who do have accounts from 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The expansive proposal is a priority of Indiana’s Secretary of Education Katie Jenner and is modeled after similar legislation passed in Florida. The law was challenged in court but prevailed in the legal fight last year. Opponents of this type of law argue it violates the First Amendment.
Jenner spoke passionately about the need to limit social media access to teens during a committee hearing Wednesday.
Jenner said she knows firsthand the effects social media has had on her own children and has heard from school leaders about the way social media has worsened student behaviors.
“They are growing up in what is now the largest unregulated experiment ever conducted on young minds, and that should frighten all of us,” Jenner said.
Jenner said this move is not meant to be a punishment but rather a proactive measure to hopefully reduce the rising amounts of ADHD, depression and anxiety seen in children.
During the Senate education committee, multiple groups and school officials spoke in favor of the ban,Bryan Ramirez, assistant principal at North Central High School, said every day administrators have to deal with the ramifications of online bullying or social media trends.
“Each new disruptive online challenge are raising the stakes. We have students that come and destroy bathrooms because it is on TikTok. We have students that come and try to destroy Chromebooks and set them on fire because it is the new challenge,” Ramirez said. “And these spread way faster than we can even accommodate, that we can respond to.”
Samantha Bresnahan, a senior policy specialist at ACLU Indiana, spoke against the bill saying that the bill’s age verification process and blanket consent requirement could violate First Amendment rights for accessing speech.
“While states may act to protect children from unprotected expression such as obscenity, they do not have unlimited authority to restrict the ideas and information young people can access simply because lawmakers find them unsuitable,” said Bresnahan.
Jenner said she’s hopeful the Indiana bill could avoid lawsuits like the one in Florida.
The bill doesn’t specifically name any social media apps or companies that would be banned, but instead lists features of applications or websites that could qualify:
- Allows users to upload content or view content of other users
- Has a daily user base that is 10% or more of 16-year-olds or younger and spends on average two hours per day or longer on the website.
- Uses algorithms to analyze user data or user information to select the content shown.
- Has addictive features like continuously loading content, live streaming abilities, autoplay videos, no apparent page breaks or displays personal interactive metrics to indicate their reaction to content.
The state previously filed or joined lawsuits against social media companies, including Meta and TikTok, related to child safety and privacy concerns.
Low-earning college degrees at risk of being eliminated
The bill also includes numerous other education priorities for Jenner like making it so the state could eliminate degree programs from state public colleges or universities that it deems to be low-earning.
Jenner said during the committee that the state would share if degree programs are earning lower on average than the state or federal average earnings for a high school diploma.
Jenner said this is about being transparent with families.
“I often say, let’s make sure what we’re selling is what we advertise,” Jenner said.
However, this provision made two senate democrats, Sen. Andrea Hunley (D-Indianapolis) and Sen. Shelli Yoder (D-Bloomington) vote against the bill, saying they worry that this will mean vital occupations like teaching or childcare work could be at risk of being cut.
The statewide average salary for a full-time teacher was $60,557 in the 2022-23 academic year, according to a state report.
The bill now heads to the full Senate.
Contact Government Reporter Caroline Beck at cbeck@wfyi.org.
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