Committee advances substitute for Senate Bill 854 to limit minors’ social media time to one hour per service per day

The Communications, Technology and Innovation Committee on Feb. 17 voted to report Senate Bill 854 with a substitute that would require controllers or processors of social media platforms to use commercially reasonable methods to determine whether a user is a minor and to limit a minor’s use of a platform to one hour per day per service or application, while allowing a parent to increase or decrease that daily time limit.

The substitute, explained to the committee by Attorney May, removed earlier language that would have prohibited “addictive feeds” and instead required age verification and time limits. Attorney May told the committee the posted substitute “no longer includes language related to addictive feeds” and that it “requires any controller or processor that operates a social media platform to use commercially reasonable methods to determine whether users are minor and to limit a minor’s use of such social media platform to 1 hour per day per service or application and allow a parent to increase or decrease the daily time limit.”

Senator Van Valkenburg, the bill’s patron, described the substitute as a compromise from an earlier “addictive feeds” approach and said the measure is aimed at reducing harms to children. “We’re gonna cap the use of social media for an hour,” he said, adding that the bill protects age-verification information from being used for other purposes.

The substitute includes a technical correction requested during the meeting: language on line 144 of the PDF substitute should use “and” instead of “or” after the phrase about reasonable methods to determine whether a user is a minor, a change Attorney May asked the committee to adopt.

Committee members questioned how platforms would reliably identify minors, enforcement mechanics, and the risk of overcollection of personally identifiable information. Delegate Keyes Gamara asked whether the technology exists and whether companies would be required to build it; Van Valkenburg replied that “some of the companies are already using” such methods and that detection will not be perfect but companies can and do employ back-end checks.

Patrick Cushing, speaking on behalf of Meta, said the company had worked with the bill’s sponsors and could support the draft. “We can support this draft,” Cushing said, while also warning against overcollection of identifying documents and describing a likely “menu of options” for age verification rather than a single mandated method.

Committee members and sponsors said enforcement would proceed under the state’s consumer-protection framework. Van Valkenburg and other members pointed to the bill’s placement in the Consumer Protection Act and the role of the attorney general in bringing enforcement actions; Senator Van Valkenburg said that enforcement would rely on the attorney general to initiate claims when a platform does not follow the statutory standard.

The committee approved a motion to adopt the amendment (a clerical/wording change identified during the hearing) by voice vote. Later, Delegate Maldonado moved to report the bill with the substitute as amended; the committee approved the motion on roll call with 19 yeas and no nays, and the bill was reported from the committee.

Key provisions discussed in committee include that controllers/processors must use commercially reasonable methods to determine whether a user is a minor; platforms must limit a minor’s daily use to one hour per day per service or application (with parental ability to increase or decrease that limit); information collected for age verification “shall not be used for any purpose other than age determination and provision of age-appropriate experiences”; and enforcement is through the attorney general under the Consumer Protection Act. The patron also pointed committee members to lines in the substitute (lines 143–151 in the posted PDF) that contain the core requirement and the data-use restriction.

The committee discussion included repeated cautions that age verification will not be perfect and that the bill represents a compromise from an earlier proposal to ban “addictive feeds.” Members who spoke in favor said they viewed the substitute as a practical step to protect children while balancing free-speech and implementation concerns. Meta’s representative said industry stakeholders had worked with the sponsors toward the current draft.

The committee did not specify technical implementation standards beyond the “commercially reasonable methods” language, and committee members asked staff and sponsors to be mindful of privacy and data-minimization concerns when platforms implement verification methods.

The committee’s vote advances SB 854 with the substitute to the next stage in the legislative process.