The Catholic Spirit: Social media restrictions bill part of MCC’s ‘Protect Kids Package’ passes House

May 12, the Minnesota House voted 132-2 in favor of a bill that would seek to establish social media requirements related to accounts for minors as well as certain enforcement and regulation mechanisms.

The bill was included in “a three-part Protect Kids Package” encouraged by the Minnesota Catholic Conference (MCC), which represents the public policy interests of the state’s Catholic bishops.

HF4138 would create protections “in two simple but important ways,” MCC wrote in its May 1 “Inside the Capitol” column for The Catholic Spirit.

“First, it would require children under 16 to obtain parental consent before creating social media accounts,” MCC wrote. “Second, if the parent chooses to let their child sign up, it would prohibit the most addictive features Big Tech uses to glue children to their platforms, such as targeted advertising, autoplay videos and infinite scroll.”

“The design will be so much different for kids that will have social media accounts,” said Rep. Peggy Scott (R-Andover), an author of HF4138. “(N)o more ads, no more push notifications, no more infinite scrolling … and the strongest privacy protections.”

“I think all of us in here agree that Big Tech is generally collecting too much data on all of us and especially on our children,” said Rep. Andy Smith (DFL-Rochester), who particularly applauded language in the amended bill that proposes prohibiting the sale, transfer or disclosure of information collected from minors’ social media accounts, except to comply with any applicable state or federal laws.

“That is a huge win for our children, for their data, for what they are doing online. And even when they grow, that data of what they were doing as a child is not able to be sold or otherwise used,” Smith said.

May 13, the Minnesota Senate referred its companion bill to the Rules and Administration Committee, for comparison with the House file.

In addition to “limiting Big Tech’s ability to target children with addictive social media algorithms” via HF4138, MCC said the Protect Kids Package encourages “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines” and “expanding school safety funding for all students” via HF3402 and HF3493, respectively.

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Learn more about MCC’s three-part Protect Kids Package online at mncatholic.org/protectourkids.

Read the full article from The Catholic Spirit.