State legislation that would tighten rules on social media platforms and calls for protections for minors who use these platforms, SB25-086, passed the Senate by a vote of 28-5 on Tuesday. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser supports the legislation.
The latest state legislation would require social media platforms to be more transparent regarding the number of users on the platform and any “product experiments that were conducted on 1,000 or more minor users.” If passed into law, the platforms will be required to issue notifications to minor users when they have used the service for one hour in the last 24-hour period.
The notification would repeat every 30 minutes after the initial notification. It must provide minor users with “information about their engagement in social media that helps the user understand the impact of social media on the developing brain and the mental and physical health of youth users. The information must be supported by data from peer-reviewed scholarly articles or the sources included in the mental health and technology resource bank.”
The bill also calls for transparent and easily accessible terms of service (TOS) and details on how to flag content that violates the terms of service (TOS). An annual report must be submitted that details how minors are using the platform, including the number of minors who saw content that was later removed due to TOS violations.
“This is a level of responsible oversight,” Weiser told Axios Denver. “We need to be doing more to protect our kids, and these platforms need to be more responsible in how they operate.”
In 2023, AG Weiser filed a lawsuit co-signed by 41 other attorneys general against Meta, the parent company to Facebook and Instagram. When filing the lawsuit, Weiser said that “we must address the insidious impact the compulsive use of Meta’s platforms has had on our young generation. Just like Big Tobacco and vaping companies have done in years past, Meta chose to maximize its profits at the expense of public health, specifically harming the health of the youngest among us. We will work tirelessly to hold the company accountable.” The lawsuit is still ongoing.
