Social Media Safety: Banning Ephemeral Messages and Mandating Parental Controls for Minors.
This Act establishes new safety rules for social media users under 17. Platforms must prohibit features where messages automatically disappear and are required to provide parents with easy-to-use tools to manage their children's direct messaging. Parents will gain the ability to approve or deny contact requests from unapproved users, significantly enhancing online safety oversight.
Key points
Social media platforms must stop offering "ephemeral messaging features" (messages that automatically disappear) to users under 17.
Mandatory parental controls must be provided, allowing parents to manage contact lists, approve new direct message requests, and disable direct messaging entirely for their children.
Direct messaging features must be disabled by default for children under 13, requiring verifiable parental consent to activate them.
The law explicitly states that platforms are not required to weaken or break strong encryption (like end-to-end encryption) to comply with these rules.
Introduced
Citizen Poll