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Social media companies would have new guardrails around accounts for minors, under a bill that passed the Minnesota Senate Friday.

The bill requires parental approval for children under 16 to open a social media account and bans some features that the bill’s authors say make these sites addictive, such as infinite scrolling, push notifications, autoplay videos and targeted advertising.

Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, said the bill also requires that these accounts have the strictest privacy settings and aims to limit the amount of data that these companies can collect about children using these apps.

The bill had bipartisan authorship and easily passed the Senate 66-0.

“Our partisan differences fall away when we're talking about Big Tech and AI regulation, because the devastation, the harm, the addictive features are visible in every kind of community, and it's not a red or blue thing, it is a human thing,” Maye Quade said. “So we have come together as legislators, regardless of party, to say it has got to stop, and we need to do something.”

Sen. Michael Kreun, R-Blaine, an author of the bill, said in a statement that this legislation will protect children.

“We are in the midst of a public health crisis that is affecting the mental and physical health of so many kids across the state, and it’s something we must address for the safety of everyone,” Kreun said. “I authored this bill because I believe it’s very important that we address this problem with commonsense safeguards that keep our kids safe when engaging with addictive social media.”

The bill had already passed the House, but an amendment on the Senate floor means it has to go back to the House for a concurrence vote before it heads to the governor’s office.

If signed into law, Minnesota would join about 20 other states that have enacted laws that regulate social media access for minors. Companies have filed lawsuits challenging some of those laws.

Maye Quade said the authors of the Minnesota bill studied the legal pitfalls used in lawsuits against those states.

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The bill would require parental consent for children under the age of 16 to create social media accounts, and would limit data mining, targeted advertising and addictive features on those accounts. It passed the Senate unanimously Friday.

Bill addressing social media accounts for minors passes Minnesota Senate

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