New law in Texas comes into force: Children must ask their parents for permission when creating social media accounts

A new law has come into effect in Texas that requires parental consent for a child to create a social media account.

Parts of the SCOPE Act, or House Bill 18, went into effect on Sunday after Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill last year.

According to Fox 4, Republican Representative Shelby Slawson pointed out in a committee hearing last year the dangers that uncontrolled social media use could pose to children, including cyberbullying and child abuse.

“A Texas teenager was rescued from a North Carolina shed where she was held captive by a sex offender who allegedly lured her away via a chat app,” she said.

The arrest of the Telegram boss in France is an “existential threat to freedom of speech,” says a technology entrepreneur.

However, Fox 4 reported that the law in its current form would not directly label such contacts.

Last week, a judge blocked provisions that would have required social media companies to filter out harmful content. But the judge allowed the requirement that children need parental consent when creating an account and that parents have the power to monitor their children's online activity.

Some social media companies argue that there are already safeguards in place to protect children online.

“While we fully agree with the underlying intent of the bill, we oppose the bill in its current form,” Antigone Davis, a spokeswoman for Facebook parent company Meta, told Fox 4.

“We've built over 30 tools to help young people stay safe and have positive experiences on our platform,” Davis added. “We have parental supervision tools, the ability to set time limits and give parents the ability to see who their child is following.”

At the same hearing last year, a representative from Meta testified that Facebook and Instagram already had safeguards in place to protect children and that teenagers' accounts used artificial intelligence to detect if false birth dates were entered when creating an account.

Meta also stated that the company blocks targeted advertising on various topics on its platforms.

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Brian Dixon, a child psychiatrist with the Texas Medical Association, spoke at the hearing about his observations among his young patients regarding the impact of social media on mental health.

“Today, children have constant access to everything and there is no filter. They have no idea when they are being advertised to and when they are not,” he said.

In other states, courts have blocked similar laws designed to regulate young people's access to social media.