Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced support Thursday for new legislation to require that social media companies verify users' age before giving them access to their site.
Under Senate Bill 396, dubbed "The Social Media Safety Act," social media users younger than 18 would have to seek parental permission to have an account.
"Arkansas is finally giving parents the tools to protect their children," Sanders said. "We believe parents' rights are paramount, and we won't let big tech's bottom line stand in the line of our kids' safety."
The bill applies to social media companies, which are defined in the bill as "public or semipublic internet-based service or application," which is used "to connect users in order to allow users to interact socially." A social media company also means an "online forum" where users can create a profile, upload posts and view posts from other accounts, according to the bill.
The bill excludes email providers and companies that provide direct messaging services. Companies that are "controlled by a business entity" that generates less than $100 million in annual gross revenue are exempted. Also exempted from the bill are streaming services, online shopping, news, sports, entertainment websites or "other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated."
The bill would require social media companies to contract with third parties to institute age verification checks for users. Companies could use a digital copy of a driver's license, a government-issued ID or "any commercially reasonable age verification method" to verify a user's age.
"We don't have to go very far to see how it's affected adults, let alone our children," said co-sponsor Jon Eubanks, R-Paris. "We need to be able to do something that gives parents another tool in order to protect their children."
The Republican governor said the measure would protect children from "big tech companies" who exploit them for profit. The bill is also sponsored by Sen. Tyler Dees, R-Siloam Springs.
During the news conference announcing her support for the bill, Sanders said social media have shown to have a negative effect on children's mental health, singling out Meta, the parent company that owns Facebook and Instagram, in particular.
"While social media can be a great tool and a good resource for a number of things, many kids are simply not prepared for the negative aspects of it," Sanders said.
A spokesperson for Meta said in an emailed response to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette late Thursday night that "We want teens to be safe online."
"We’ve developed more than 30 tools to support teens and families, including tools that let parents and teens work together to limit the amount of time teens spend on Instagram, and age verification technology that helps teens have age-appropriate experiences," the statement read.
"We automatically set teens’ accounts to private when they join Instagram, and we send notifications encouraging them to take regular breaks. We don’t allow content that promotes suicide, self-harm or eating disorders, and of the content we remove or take action on, we identify over 99% of it before it’s reported to us.
"We’ll continue to work closely with experts, policymakers and parents on these important issues.”
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announces proposed legislation regarding social media during a news conference Thursday at the state Capitol in Little Rock. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)