New NC bill would ban minors from social media

A new bill filed in the North Carolina House of Representatives aims to ban children under 14 from social media and age-verify some sites — but not like other age-verification laws.

HB 301, called the Social Media Protections for Minors Act, was introduced last Wednesday and passed its first reading, according to North Carolina station WFMY News 2. It’ll now go to a committee for further review.

Similar to Australia’s social media ban for children under 16, this bill would prohibit anyone under 14 from creating an account on social platforms that meet certain criteria (like having 10 percent daily active users under 16 and “addictive” features like infinite scrolling). Children aged 14 to 15 would need parents’ permission to make an account, though it doesn’t detail how this consent would be handled.

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Additionally, HB 301 calls for “anonymous” or standard age verification when viewing a site with a substantial portion (over a third) of content deemed “harmful to minors.” The phrase “harmful to minors” harkens back to a Supreme Court case, Ginsberg v. New York, which concluded that content that isn’t obscene (thus protected by the First Amendment) can still be “harmful to minors.”

Typically, in age-verification laws, this means explicit content. This part is in line with other such laws, which require some form of age verification (such as a digital ID or facial scan) in order to visit porn sites.

Unlike other age-verification laws that have passed in the U.S. — including North Carolina’s own age-verification law — this one requires these site visitors to be 16 years or older, not 18, though. In North Carolina, the age of consent is 16.

In January, the Supreme Court heard about age-verification laws in the case Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, and their ruling will likely come out this summer. Findings from a recent study on age verification laws suggest that these laws don’t work at their proposed aim to keep minors away from explicit websites. This is because they can access websites that don’t comply with the laws, or work around them with a VPN.