(ConservativeHub.com) – Last week, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) proposed a bill that would ban users from utilizing social media if they are below the age of 16.
The MATURE Act would enforce users to verify that they are minimally 16 years of age when they make a social media account. In order to create an account, users would have to provide their date of birth, entire legal name, and a photo or scanned image of government issued id which verifies the information they provided.
In his February 14 announcement, Hawley said that children were suffering from social media effects and that Big Tech neglects the health of people’s children and monetizes their personal information. He added that it was time for parents to have something they could use to “strike back.”
The legislation would require regular audits from the FTC once every 6 months, according to a report from The Hill. The FTC audits would help ensure compliance and could compare the records from a random sample of all accounts against federal records to confirm ages of the users.
On the same day, Hawley also introduced the Federal Social Media Research Act which would require full-scale research on the effects of social media on children. The implementation of the bill would involve a study that would track these impacts, and this would culminate in the creation of a full report on the matter.
According to a recent study posted on Jama Network and reported on by The Hill, social media might have an effect on youth brain development. The outlet also reported that Surgeon General Vivek Murphy had argued that 13 year-olds were too young to have access to social media.
Copyright 2023, ConservativeHub.com
