Austin, Texas (AP) – a pressure in Texas, to ban social media accounts for children under the age of 18 on Thursday, after the legislator has not held an essential coordination of the creation of one of the hardest restrictions in the country, which have held minors from platforms such as Tikok, Snapchat and Instagram.
The legislative template, which has already passed the GOP -controlled State House, is to continue as a ban on social media in (*18*) for minors under the age of 14. Australia prohibited social media accounts for people under the age of 16.
However, the earlier dynamics behind the measurement in Texas slowed down in the Senate in the eleventh hour when the legislators were faced with a weekend period to send invoices to the Republican governor Greg Abbott. Abbott has not publicly said whether he supported the proposed ban, which was rejected by Tech trade groups and critics, which called it an unconstitutional limit for freedom of speech.
“This law was the best way to protect children in this state,” said Rep. Jared Patterson, a Republican who bears the measure on Wednesday.
The legislative meeting ends on Monday. This leaves a narrowing route for the proposal, which, if it has passed, would determine another test of state efforts to set limits how and when children can access social media.
Many technology companies have presented Elon Musk in Texas, including X.
At the beginning of this week, Abbott signed a separate measure, according to which Apple and Google arrange the age of the online app Store user and the consent of the parents to download apps and at the end of in-app purchases for users under the age of 18. Utah passed a similar invoice at the beginning of this year.
The proposed ban on Texas, which is aimed at minors, is the latest step in a growing cross -party push nationwide in order to address the effects of social media on the well -being of children. Critics accuse platforms of using addictive functions to attract children to their website and keep them there and not to do enough to contain violent or age-independent content or online abuse.
Almost half of the American teenagers say that despite concerns about the effects of social media and smartphones on their mental health, they are “constantly” online, as can be seen from a report published by the Pew Research Center in December 2024.
The American Psychological Association has asked technology companies and legislators to protect children’s mental health and argues that social media platforms are “particularly risky” for newborn people who have not been released from locations and have to struggle with impulse control.
States and countries have taken various measures to tackle the problem and some have met legal challenges.
In 2024, a federal judge temporarily blocked the first law of Utah in which social media companies check the age of all users and place restrictions for miners for minors.
In California, in which some of the largest technology companies in the world are located, it is illegal for social media platforms in order to know that children knowingly addictive feeds for children, without the consent of the parents from 2027. And New York State to prevent her children from doing so, social media contributions through the algorithm of a platform.
