Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders continues to sign bills passed earlier this year by the Arkansas General Assembly. On Tuesday, she signed into law the “Social Media Safety Act” which aims to prevent underage children in Arkansas from setting up social media accounts without obtaining parental permission.

“As a parent, this is a very personal thing,” Sanders said. “I have a ten-year-old, a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old.” The governor said she was concerned about the increase in depression among teenagers, and that the bill was the start of “great steps in protecting the young people of Arkansas.”

The law also requires adult social media users in Arkansas to provide a digital copy of their ID for purposes of age verification. That only applies to new accounts and is not applicable to companies like Amazon and Google which would not qualify as social media under the act.

https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2023-04-13/arkansas-governor-signs-social-media-regulation-bill

by Ronak Patel (rspatel.personal@gmail.com)

Gov. Sarah Sanders, along with Sen. Tyler Dees, R- Siloam Springs, and Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, introduced legislation on Thursday (March 9) that would regulate social media companies and require age verification from users on social media sites.

Sanders said SB 396, the Social Media Safety Act, is needed given social media can be dangerous for kids.

“It’s already an incredibly dangerous world. The last thing they [kids] need is to be exposed to the most evil parts of it that play out on social media everyday,” she told reporters at a press conference at the state capitol.

https://talkbusiness.net/2023/03/governor-lawmakers-push-bill-to-require-age-verification-for-social-media-usage/