|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
BOSTON — As Massachusetts considers imposing new restrictions on minors’ social media use, mental health and online safety advocates are praising the effort. But critics of the House-passed bill say it threatens personal privacy and would put marginalized communities at risk.
With the bill, Massachusetts may join a growing number of states in taking on Big Tech. The House bill approved earlier this month, which would also ban cellphones in schools, closely mirrors a Florida law that has been fought in court for two years.
The House bill would prohibit children under 14 from using social media, including those who already have accounts.
Fourteen- and 15-year-olds would need their parents’ “verified consent” to join social media. Their accounts would default to the strictest privacy and safety settings, restrict messaging to “connected accounts” and require age verification to view “sensitive content.”
A recent poll of Massachusetts residents found that 72% of respondents strongly or somewhat support the social media restrictions. The poll, conducted by The University of New Hampshire Survey Center, was based on survey responses from 721 people.
All five of New Bedford’s state representatives voted in favor of the bill, which passed the House 129-25 on April 8. It now goes to the Senate for consideration; the Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill.
Teens 16 and older would not have any restrictions. Rep. Mark Sylvia, D-Fairhaven, said this is because 16-year-olds are more mature.
“I was comfortable in supporting [the bill] as a parent myself, recognizing there’s so much being thrown at our children these days,” Sylvia said. “There are good aspects of social media, but there are also some dangerous and unsafe aspects to social media and impacts on the well-being of children.”
In an effort to protect young people’s mental health, the bill would block social media notifications from midnight to 6 a.m. for 14- and 15-year-olds and restrict access to “addictive” features such as autoplay videos and algorithm-driven feeds.
Research on how social media and phones impact young people’s mental health is “difficult to ignore,” Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, said in a statement to The Light. Cabral said parents should have a “meaningful role” in how their children use technology.
Rep. Christopher Hendricks, D-New Bedford, and Rep. Steven Ouellette, D-Westport, told The Light that the bill’s restrictions would also help safeguard children from online exploitation, an issue Ouellette said is “getting out of control.”
Hendricks noted that the most harmful part of social media for kids is the lack of oversight.
“It’s the wild West,” he said. “It makes children far too accessible to the public.”
The Light was unable to connect with Rep. Christopher Markey, D-Dartmouth before deadline. Sen. Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, is still reviewing the House’s proposal, according to his general counsel, Audra Riding.
Concerns over social media’s effects
Chanda Coutinho, chief operations officer of Child and Family Services in New Bedford, said social media can have both positive and negative effects on children’s mental health. Some children who struggle with social anxiety have found other “like-minded youth” to connect with online. But constant comparison to their peers can also contribute to anxiety and depression and negatively affect children’s self-worth, she said.
Mark Dressel, New Bedford High School’s student council president, has experienced this firsthand.
“[Social media] sets unrealistic expectations for teenagers,” Dressel said, noting that he began using social media at 14. “Me and some of my closest friends have all had a reality check when we have expectations that are set by social media … and we realize that’s not actually how the world works.”
Still, many young people benefit from using social media, Dressel added, noting that many students have become involved in the community after connecting with local leaders and organizations online.
Critics sound the alarm over social media restrictions
The House’s proposed restrictions would require social media companies to verify the ages of all users — not just minors — using the “best technology available.” The bill doesn’t specify what the age verification system might look like, and the New Bedford lawmakers who spoke to The Light couldn’t add details about the age verification system.
The best available technology often requires users to submit personal data, including government IDs or facial scans. Age verification often negatively affects people of color, people with disabilities and transgender individuals, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Scotia Hille, executive director of Act on Mass, said the age verification requirement raises “enormous data privacy concerns.”
Last year, Discord’s third-party age verification vendor was hacked, exposing the government ID photos of about 70,000 users. The bill would require platforms to permanently delete users’ personal information once the account is terminated. The bill would also require platforms to provide parents with their children’s age verification data upon request.
Cabral said concerns around the bill’s privacy and free speech implications are “valid” and that he hopes the conference committee will give them “serious consideration.”
Hille argued that the bill is especially concerning at a time of increased surveillance and a crackdown on political speech. In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to tech companies, including Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, requesting identifying data from accounts that track or criticize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Our federal government has been putting extra pressure, especially on tech companies, to unmask users for the free speech that they’re having on the internet,” Hille said. “I think that the data privacy concerns created by this bill in our current political climate are just unworkable.”
Hille also criticized the speed at which the bill moved through the Legislature. House leadership announced its intention to pass an age-verification law on April 6, two days before it passed. It released the new language on April 8 and passed it the same evening.
“There’s no way that a bill with such sweeping implications … should be able to move with as little public notice and public discussion as it did,” Hille said.
Evan Greer, director of the Boston-based digital rights advocacy group Fight for Our Future, said marginalized communities would be “disproportionately harmed” by the bill. Undocumented people who can’t access a government ID would be locked out of platforms they rely on to share information, warn others about ICE activity and raise money for legal and family support, she said.
She noted that low-income communities and people of color also face disparities in access to government ID.
Greer also argued that the social media restrictions would put LGBTQ+ youth at risk, despite an amendment that would prohibit platforms from sharing information about minors’ LGBTQ+ status. She pointed to a 2023 advisory from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, which found that access to social media is associated with better mental health outcomes in LGBTQ+ youth.
“For queer folks and trans folks that have unsupportive or abusive family, sometimes going online and being able to chat with other people who share your identity is the only affirming space that you have,” Greer said. “That, in and of itself, is a form of suicide prevention.”
Hille and Greer both noted that the bill’s broad definition of social media — any platform with primarily user-generated content, aside from text messaging, email, or document-sharing services — would extend to educational sites such as Wikipedia.
Greer raised similar concerns about Gov. Maura Healey’s proposal to limit youth’s social media use to two hours a day.
“I totally understand why lawmakers feel urgency to do something about this issue,” Greer said. “But they can actually make the situation worse if they don’t work with human rights, civil liberties and technology experts to craft legislation that actually reins in these companies.”
Legislature seeks to ban phones in schools
The House proposal would also prohibit cellphone use in schools, building on a bill the Senate passed last July.
The House bill would require every school district in the state to implement a policy prohibiting the use of personal electronic devices — including non-school-issued phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches and Bluetooth-enabled devices — during the school day, with limited accommodations. The policies must allow “at least one method” for parents and students to contact each other.
“I believe that our schools should be places of engagement, curiosity and human connection,” Cabral said in support of the school cellphone ban.
Local school committees would be charged with developing a policy, which they would have to file annually with the state.
New Bedford schools already have phone bans in place. The district’s middle and high schools, as well as Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical School, adopted Yondr pouches this school year. The pouches prevent students from using personal devices by physically locking them away.
Voc-Tech Superintendent Michael Watson said it’s “pretty obvious” that cellphones create distractions at school. He described the once-quiet cafeteria as “vibrant,” with students now engaging with each other.
“We wanted to make sure that kids were focused on learning in the classrooms and building all of the skills that would lead to a well-rounded ability to participate in a society as adults,” he said.
Dressel has also seen a noticeable difference since New Bedford High School implemented the pouches. Students interact with each other more, now playing cards instead of scrolling, he said.
Watson said there are no safety concerns under his school’s current policy. Students can contact their parents in a “controlled environment,” such as the main office, and if there’s an emergency, parents are notified through an automated system or contacted directly. He noted that emergencies would be made worse if students had access to their phones.
“The last thing we need is 2,000 people giving their own version of events to people in the community,” Watson said.
Dressel said New Bedford High students can contact their parents through the office.
The New Bedford Educators Association, Superintendent Andrew O’Leary and New Bedford High School principal Joyce Cardoza did not respond to a request for comment.
According to a House press release, the bill now goes to the Senate for further consideration. As of Monday, the bill’s page on the Legislature’s website does not indicate when the Senate will take further action.
Though the Senate passed the cellphone ban bill last July, its version had no social-media age restrictions. Normally, a bill with differing House and Senate versions would go to a House-Senate conference committee for negotiations. But in this case, the Senate will consider the new version first, because the social-media ban is so significant, according to Sylvia and the Senate clerk.
“It doesn’t just simply go to conference, because the bill had a significant addition to it, and so it’ll go back to the Senate for further deliberation before we potentially end up in conference,” said Sylvia.
In a statement earlier this month, Senate President Karen Spilka said she “applauds the House for joining the Senate in recognizing” school cellphone bans as a priority for classrooms, and said she “is excited to review their proposal protecting children from social media.”
Healey’s proposals were included in a fiscal 2026 supplemental budget request currently before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Jamie Perkins is a graduate student in journalism covering state government for The Light as part of the Boston University Statehouse Program. Email them at jperkins@newbedfordlight.org.
The State House News Service contributed reporting.