A new law in Texas has come into effect, mandating parental consent before kids can establish social media accounts.
On Sunday, certain provisions of the SCOPE Act, also known as House Bill 18, took effect.
In Texas, a new law has been enacted which mandates parental consent before a child can establish a social media presence.
The SCOPE Act, or House Bill 18, was signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last year and parts of it took effect on Sunday.
During a committee hearing last year, Republican state representative Shelby Slawson warned about the dangers of unsupervised social media use for children, including cyberbullying and predators, as reported by Fox 4.
A North Carolina predator lured a Texas teenager away through a chat app and held her captive in a shed, according to the teenager.
Fox 4 reported that the current law does not directly flag those types of contacts.
A judge last week blocked provisions that would have mandated social media companies to remove harmful content. However, the judge permitted the requirement for parental consent for children creating an account and the right of parents to monitor their child's online activities.
Some social media companies contend that existing safeguards shield children from online harm.
Antigone Davis, a spokesperson for Meta, told Fox 4 that while they agree with the bill's underlying intent, they oppose the bill as currently filed.
""Our platform has over 30 tools to ensure young users have a positive experience and are safe, including parental supervision, time limits, and the ability for parents to monitor their child's activity," Davis stated."
Last year, during the same hearing, a Meta representative stated that Facebook and Instagram have safeguards in place to safeguard children and that teenagers' accounts use AI to detect fake dates of birth being entered to create an account.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has implemented a feature that prevents targeted advertisements on its platforms for a range of topics.
A child psychiatrist from the Texas Medical Association, Brian Dixon, discussed the effects of social media on his young patients' mental health during the hearing.
"Kids now have unrestricted access to everything, without any filter, and they lack the ability to distinguish between being advertised to and not," he stated.
Similar legislation aimed at controlling social media access for young people has been blocked by courts in other states.
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