Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders continues to sign bills passed earlier this year by the Arkansas General Assembly. On Tuesday, she signed into law the “Social Media Safety Act” which aims to prevent underage children in Arkansas from setting up social media accounts without obtaining parental permission.
“As a parent, this is a very personal thing,” Sanders said. “I have a ten-year-old, a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old.” The governor said she was concerned about the increase in depression among teenagers, and that the bill was the start of “great steps in protecting the young people of Arkansas.”
The law also requires adult social media users in Arkansas to provide a digital copy of their ID for purposes of age verification. That only applies to new accounts and is not applicable to companies like Amazon and Google which would not qualify as social media under the act.
Under the law, social media companies themselves do not check the age of a user. Instead, provisions are set up for third-party vendors to check a user's ID. Social media companies that do not comply with the rules could be subject to a $2,500 fine for each violation. Sanders said this was to protect users and make sure data “doesn't go into the wrong hands.”
Concerns about the logistics and enforceability of the law have been brought up since its inception. Some of the most popular social media companies like TikTok and Facebook are not based in Arkansas, and so may not have to follow the state law. The governor did not share this concern and said her administration was already working with third party vendors to set up the system.
“This is not a complicated process,” she said. “They have figured out much more heavy things when it comes to big tech, I don't think this should be too much of a lift.”
Sanders also said the bill has language preventing third party users from violating other users' rights to privacy. The new law will to go into effect on Sept. 1.
