A Service of UA Little Rock
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Social media photo ID bill passes Arkansas committee

Arkansas State Capitol
Jacob Kauffman
/
KUAR
A bill to regulate when children can set up social media accounts made it out of a Senate committee Tuesday.

A bill pushed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to regulate children on social media passed an Arkansas legislative committee Tuesday.

The Social Media Safety Act would require Arkansans to show a photo ID before setting up a new account. If the bill becomes law, minors would also need express consent from their parents to set up a social media account.

Republican Sen. Tyler Dees explained it like this.

“The process would be a third-party verifier that the social media site would contract with. They would verify the age and then they would dump that data. At that point, they would be able to give consent for a new profile to be created.”

Parents would have the right to pursue a lawsuit against companies that don’t comply with the rules.

Dees expressed his belief that social media can have negative outcomes on kids’ mental health.

“As I tell my kids, [social media] can be used for good or used for evil,” he said. “They can be used to cut your own arm off like a sword.”

Speaking against the bill, Dustin Brighton from the special interest group Net Choice said some of its provisions would violate Supreme Court precedent.

“The Supreme Court has already said that access to constitutional speech cannot be conditioned on prior parental consent,” he said. “Plus, it interferes with decision-making within families.”

The bill passed the Senate Insurance and Commerce committee on a voice vote. A similar bill also sponsored by Dees would require age verification to access adult websites.

Josie Lenora is the Politics/Government Reporter for Little Rock Public Radio.