Texas House Passes Bill Blocking Social Media Sites

A controversial bill aims at banning children in Texas from using social media, and experts have arguments in support and in opposition. https://t.co/ImlWsCSVpD

— FOX26Houston (@FOX26Houston) May 1, 2025

Local NBC News reports:

Texas is setting itself up to be a leader in regulating the social media sphere.

Today, the Texas House passed a bill 116-25 that would prohibit children from using social media. House Bill 186 requires a strict verification process to ensure account holders are at least 18 years old.

“I firmly believe that social media is the most harmful product that our kids have legal access to in Texas,” said Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, the bill’s author.

‘It is our kids killing themselves’
Patterson said HB 186 is the most important one he will lay out this session, citing rising rates of self-harm and suicide amongst minors linked to social media use.

Patterson previously cited a study conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate in 2022. Researchers created a social media account posing as a 13-year-old user, and interacted with content related to body image and mental health issues. Within 2.6 minutes, content related to suicide was recommended. Within eight minutes, content related to eating disorders was shown.

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“ER visits are up, anorexia amongst girls are up, pornography addiction and aggression amongst boys up,” said Patterson. “It is our kids killing themselves at a clip that we’ve never seen before in the history of the state of Texas, and it’s all correlated back to this rapid rise in social media use for young people.”

Right before the vote, Patterson dedicated his bill to those who took their own lives after dealing with social media addiction.

“In honor of David Molak and the countless other children who have lost their lives due to the harms of social media,” Patterson said.

When children post online (or their parents post their pics) guess what kind of people download those pics and pass them around?

Social media is housing an online underworld where young girls' photos and videos are being exploited and consumed by men.

The issue ranges from a small website allowing parents to sell access to photos of their children, to large platforms where hundreds of kidfluencer "fans"… pic.twitter.com/OOm4Nxhwjj

— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) May 20, 2024