Massachusetts governor proposes her own youth social media bill: "This isn't a ban"

One week after the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed legislation to ban social media for kids under 14, Gov. Maura Healey has offered her own bill with some key differences.

"This isn't a ban," Healey said at a news conference Tuesday. "But it is deactivation." 

Healey said her bill is "complementary" to what the House passed, but her proposal is more focused on changing the default settings on social media platforms. For young people under 18 years old, the governor's bill would require social media companies to automatically deactivate features like infinite scrolling, videos that play automatically and "addictive algorithms that target young people based on what they privately viewed in the past."

Social media users who are 16 and older could change those settings themselves. But for anyone 15 and younger, only a parent or guardian could modify the new default settings.

"The bottom line is we're taking steps here in Massachusetts to protect our young people, to actually take the power away from social media platforms and give that power to young people and to parents," Healey said. "It's a matter of control."  

Some of the other protections that Healey wants to be the default for minors: Turning off location tracking features, disabling notifications and restricting access during school hours and overnight, and limiting overall use to two hours per day. 

"I don't know what it will cost the social media platforms to implement these things," Healey said. "But I think the social media platforms are doing pretty damn well right now."

A spokesperson for House Speaker Ron Mariano said in a statement, "The House continues to believe in the merits of our proposal, which passed overwhelmingly and on a bipartisan basis."

"We look forward to working with the Senate through the conference committee process, and to sending Governor Healey legislation that protects children in Massachusetts from the dangers of social media — including harmful content and addictive algorithms that have a proven negative effect on their mental health and academic performance," the spokesperson said.

Lawmakers behind the House bill say Massachusetts would have one of the most restrictive youth social media bans in the country if it becomes law. A tech expert WBZ-TV talked to said enforcing it could open a "Pandora's box" for privacy concerns.

"If you're going to try to enforce Massachusetts state boundaries you have to enforce that location services be turned on, if that's the case," Peter Tran said. "And so that brings a lot of debate from a security and data privacy standpoint, especially for minors."