Tell the Mass. House Today: Don’t Censor Kids!

Yesterday, WCVB reported that the Massachusetts House will vote on a bill to ban social media use by children under 14 and would require parental consent for children under 16. It would also ban K-12 students from using their phones during the school day, which the Senate has already passed.

Australia imposed age-based social media bans recently. It is both harming children with disabilities by preventing them from communicating with people like them and encouraging children and teens to route around censorship. These ham handed censorship laws are not backed up by reality.

Age-verification systems put a gate on our 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech! They require that everyone prove they are old enough by presenting identification. The scanned image of your drivers license, birth certificate or passport will make its way to data brokers and put in your permanent corporate and/or government record. If the data exists in a server somewhere, it will get out to criminals. Even if it worked and respected our right to privacy, millions would be prevented from speaking because they lack identification proving their age. People of color or who are poor or undocumented or have a disability are more likely to not have the required identification.

We need to stop this bill today! Find your legislator and call their office! If the first link doesn’t work for you, use this method to search for your legislator. Tell them:

• Social media bans harm children by preventing them from communicating with other children like them, including LGBTQ+ youth and those with disabilties;
• Many children will find ways to route around such censorship anyway;
• Age-verification systems are a tax on free speech for everyone. They require documentation that thousands of adults do not have or will have to go out of their way and their pay check to acquire;
• Providing private information makes us all vulnerable to governments that intend to harm us, corporations that intend to profit off us and hackers that intend to scam us.

We have to stop this bill. Make the call today and encourage others to call!