Seeing ‘a raging battle’ to limit screen time, NC may ban social media for kids under 14
A bill being advanced by North Carolina lawmakers this week would ban accounts on social media platforms for kids under 14.
The Republican proposal, which was approved by a House committee on Tuesday afternoon, would require social media companies to delete any accounts belonging to minors under 14 after giving them a month’s notice, and permanently delete all of the account’s personal information.
If state prosecutors believe social media companies are violating this ban, they would be authorized to bring legal action that could include a civil penalty of up to $50,000 for each violation.
House Bill 301 would also regulate the use of social media accounts by 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds, requiring them to get consent from their parents or a guardian before making an account.
One of the bill’s primary sponsors, Rep. Jeffrey Zenger of Lewisville, told lawmakers in committee on Tuesday that he wanted to provide parents with a “backstop” to help them regulate and limit social media use by young teenagers.
He recalled his own experience trying to limit the “screen time” of his four kids when they were younger, describing it as “a raging battle.”
Zenger has previously said the bill is intended to protect kids from the harms of social media platforms that can be addictive.
“Kids are still developing, so their minds … their bodies and everything are not completely developed, and what actually happens is an overabundance of screen time literally rewires the brain,” the Republican told WGHP last week.
Most social media platforms currently have policies in place that state that users need to be at least 13 to create an account. That age restriction stems from a federal rule that was first implemented in 2000 that required certain commercial websites to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under the age of 13.
With the proliferation of social media among young users, however, lawmakers at the state level and in Congress have proposed new restrictions and prohibitions on usage by young teens.
A number of states have moved in recent years to require age verification and parental consent for accounts belonging to minors, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
HB 301, named “Social Media Protections for Minors Under 16,” would require social media companies to offer both an anonymous age verification method and a standard age verification method. Users creating a new account would be able to choose which method they wanted to use to verify their age.
Committee hears concerns about scope of bill
During the committee hearing Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Deb Butler of Wilmington expressed concern about the bill’s definition of social media companies that would have to comply with the age restrictions being too broad.
The version of the bill that was heard in committee was revised to exclude from the bill’s purview community forums for customer support, certain interactive video games, and online shopping and e-commerce websites.
It already excluded e-mail and direct messaging websites where messages are “shared only between the sender and the recipients,” and aren’t posted publicly for anyone to see.
Reighlah Collins, an attorney with the ACLU of North Carolina, meanwhile, raised concerns that banning kids of a certain age from accessing social media would infringe on their constitutional right to free expression.
Having cleared the Judiciary 2 Committee, the bill will be heard next by the Commerce and Economic Development Committee.
Follows bipartisan bills to restrict phones in schools
The bill currently has 13 sponsors, all of whom are Republicans. But lawmakers from both parties have already come together in agreement this session on the related issue of cellphone use in schools.
Both the Senate and the House voted by overwhelming margins in recent weeks to pass separate bills that would require the state’s public schools to heavily restrict phone use during classes.
Lawmakers in both chambers will need to reach an agreement on which cellphone bill to move forward and send to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, who said earlier this month that he agreed that phones should be restricted in schools.
Before being elected governor last year, during his second term as attorney general, Stein joined a bipartisan lawsuit with 41 other states against Meta, which counts among its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, for allegedly designing its platforms to be addictive and misleading the public about the harms of social media for children.
The lawsuit, which was announced in October 2023, claimed that Meta collected data from kids under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law.
Prior to the lawsuit being filed, a pair of surveys conducted by Pew in the fall of 2023 found that 81% of U.S. adults supported requiring parental consent for minors to create social media accounts, as opposed to 46% of teenagers.
This story was originally published April 1, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Seeing ‘a raging battle’ to limit screen time, NC may ban social media for kids under 14."
