LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) – State Sen. Tanya Storer of Whitman says social media can be harmful to your kids, and that there’s plenty of research to support that.
“We see dramatically increasing rates of anxiety, clinical depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation,” Storer said. “That includes body dysmorphia and a variety of other mental health concerns.”
Her bill, LB383, would require social media websites to verify a person’s age before they can create a profile. And if they’re under 18, they would require parental consent.
“This isn’t really a new concept, age verification online,” Storer said. “It’s done for alcohol sales, it’s done for gambling websites. And most recently, last year, there was a provision in the pornography bill for age verification.”
The Nebraska ACLU told First Alert 6 the measure goes against free speech rights, which apply to teenagers like everyone else. They added that First Amendment rights do apply to social media platforms, unlike adult websites.
“There’s a difference between an adult website — like the law that was passed last year — versus something like social media, which is literally a place created just to talk,” policy counsel Dylan Severino said. “So the regulations on that are different.”
Severino said Storer’s bill is similar to a law Arkansas passed in 2023 that a federal judge put a temporary injunction on.
Storer said she hasn’t read that law. However, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers believes her bill would be enforceable.
“We’re talking about minors under the authority of their parents,” Storer said. “As in any other situation, the parents still have rights over what their children have access to.”
The ACLU is also raising privacy concerns since the bill would require minors to provide digitized identification cards with the same information as a driver’s license or other government-issued ID.
Severino said even though the bill prohibits platforms from keeping that information, it doesn’t quiet that concern.
“That’s easier said than done when information is imprinted onto hard drives on a server somewhere,” he said. “And even if it’s deleted off the hard drive, the information still remains…retrievable through certain processes.”
Storer said social media companies can already piece together that information with the pictures, location and other data they currently collect.
“We can use Snapchat as an example that it is theoretically deleted but can be recovered, if that is a concern as well,” she said.
She also added her proposal includes fines up to $2,500 per violation for companies that don’t delete that information.
The ACLU said it isn’t necessary to have a law to look out for kids on social media because parents can already monitor what their children see.
The Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the bill. No date has been set yet.
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