PHOENIX — Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego is preparing legislation that would require children and teens younger than 16 to obtain parental permission before creating accounts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Gallego, a Democrat, emphasized in an exclusive interview with ABC15 that the proposal is not an outright ban on social media for younger users. Instead, parents or legal guardians would be able to authorize and jointly manage accounts for minors.
The proposal comes as governments around the world continue to debate the effects of social media on children and adolescents. Countries including France and Australia have adopted restrictions on younger users’ access to social media platforms.
Among Phoenix-area parents interviewed by ABC15, some expressed support for stronger oversight of children’s online activity.
“I think it is more harm than good as far as affecting mental health, their body image,” said Ali Rodriguez, a parent.
Another parent, Angel Seda, said the growing influence of online content and artificial intelligence makes monitoring young users increasingly important.
“Especially with all the stuff that’s always being broadcast and showed, all the AI that’s available and displayed out there every single day, I definitely think it’s something that should be monitored,” Seda said.
Under Gallego’s proposal, social media companies would be required to provide parent-supervised accounts for users under 16. Parents would have tools to oversee and manage how their children use the platforms.
“These social media companies are basically mining our kids for information, for profit, and feeding them garbage, digital garbage,” Gallego said. “It’s starting to affect them; it affects grades, it affects mentality, it affects self-esteem.”
The senator said age verification would be required and that a parent would need to participate in creating the account.
“You would have to put in, under verification, a name, a date and you’d have to also have a parent sign and create a joint account with them,” Gallego said. “There’s lots of ways to do that, it’s not that difficult to do, verification of age.”
Age verification methods commonly used online include government-issued identification, credit card verification and database cross-referencing. Privacy advocates, however, have raised concerns in other age-verification efforts about the collection and storage of sensitive personal information.
Gallego said the legislation would apply not only to existing major social media platforms but also to future services that gain widespread popularity. Companies that fail to comply would face penalties.
The bill has not yet been formally introduced in Congress, but Gallego said he believes it could attract bipartisan support.
Some parents acknowledged potential challenges in enforcing the restrictions but still supported the effort.
“In many ways, kids are more savvy when it comes to technology than their parents are, and they can get around things like that,” said Tony Nickelsen, a parent. “For my boys, yeah, I’m all for it.”
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