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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | March 20, 2023 10:27 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Robert W. Mercuri |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Social Media Age Requirements |
| In the near future, I will be introducing a bill to raise the age of accountability on social media platforms by mandating age verification and allowing parents to request the deletion of a child’s account. Additionally, my bill will affirmatively require that the information used for these verification purposes may not be used for any other purpose and that this information must be deleted immediately upon completion of age verification. There is no doubt of the outsized role that social media has come to play in our lives and the lives of our children. There are clear and demonstrated harms to children who utilize these platforms, a fact which has been known by social media companies for years. Attempts by these companies to curtail such harms failed to alleviate the problem and actually made it worse. Despite this, these companies have viewed children as “a valuable but untapped audience.” When confronted with the possibility of accountability for the harms perpetuated, one company even attempted to drive a manufactured partisan wedge between a bipartisan issue in order to stall federal policy changes. In light of this, it is incumbent on us to proactively protect our children from such predatory practices. I hope you will consider joining me in sponsoring this legislation. |
Introduced as HB2553
Memo Updated: September 9, 2024 01:57 PM