2025 Legislation on Internet Use by Children. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, as of October 2025, 45 states and Puerto Rico introduced over 300 bills and measures relating to children while using the Internet and Internet-based forms of communication, including social media, and at least 20 states enacted new laws in 2025.

Such legislation included, in part, the creation of study commissions and task forces; establishing age-appropriate design codes and requiring impact assessments; requiring age verification or parental consent to open social media accounts; adding digital and media literacy courses or curriculum for K-12 students; and regulating the use of cellphones in schools.

2024 Mississippi Law and Litigation. In 2024, Mississippi enacted HB 1126, entitled the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act (Mississippi Act). The Mississippi Act contains provisions substantially similar to the current bill.

In June 2024, NetChoice, LLC (NetChoice), a trade association for Internet companies, filed a complaint and request for preliminary injunction in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi (District Court) against the Attorney General of Mississippi, seeking to enjoin enforcement of the Mississippi Act on First Amendment protected speech grounds, as well as alleging that the Mississippi Act was unconstitutionally vague under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and preempted by Section 230 of the federal Communications Act of 1934.

In July 2024, the District Court granted NetChoice's request for preliminary injunction. Mississippi appealed the District Court's ruling to the United States District Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Fifth DCA). In April 2025, the Fifth DCA vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded the case back to the District Court, finding it did not conduct an analysis required by a United States Supreme Court decision and Fifth Circuit precedent.

In June 2025, the District Court again granted NetChoice a preliminary injunction. Mississippi again appealed to the Fifth DCA, which in July 2025 granted Mississippi's request to stay NetChoice's preliminary injunction.

In August 2025, NetChoice filed an emergency application to the United States Supreme Court to reinstate the preliminary injunction. In the same month, the United States Supreme Court denied NetChoice's application. The Mississippi Act currently remains in effect, pending judicial review.

Digital Service Providers. A digital service is defined as a website, an application, a program, or software that collects or processes personal identifying information with Internet connectivity. A digital service provider is defined as a person who:

• owns or operates a digital service;
• determines the purpose of collecting and processing the personal identifying information of users of the digital service; and
• determines the means used to collect and process the personal identifying information of users of the digital service.

Personal identifying information means any information, including sensitive information, that is linked or reasonably linkable to an identified or identifiable individual. It includes pseudonymous information when the information is used by a controller or processor in conjunction with additional information that reasonably links the information to an identified or identifiable individual. It does not include de-identified information or publicly available information.

The bill states it applies only to a digital service provider who provides a digital service that:

• connects users in a manner that allows users to socially interact with other users on the digital service;
• allows a user to create a public, semipublic, or private profile for purposes of signing into and using the digital service; and
• allows a user to create or post content that can be viewed by other users of the digital service, including sharing content on a message board, a chat room, or a landing page, video channel, or main feed that presents to a user content created and posted by other users.

The bill states it does not apply to:

• a digital service provider who processes or maintains user data in connection with the employment, promotion, reassignment, or retention of the user as an employee or independent contractor, to the extent that the user's data is processed or maintained for that purpose;
• a digital service provider's provision of a digital service that facilitates e-mail or direct messaging services, if the digital service facilitates only those services;
• a digital service provider's provision of a digital service that primarily functions to provide a user with access to news, sports, commerce, online video games, or content primarily generated or selected by the digital service provider; and allows chat, comment, or other interactive functionality that is incidental to the digital service; or
• a digital service provider's provision of a digital service that primarily functions to provide a user with access to career development opportunities, including professional networking, job skills, learning certifications; job posting, and application services.

The bill further excludes from a digital service provider an Internet service provider, Internet service provider's affiliate or subsidiary, search engine, or cloud service provider that solely provides access or connection, including through transmission, download, intermediate storage, access software or other service, to an Internet website or to other information or content on the Internet or on a facility, system, or network not under the control of the Internet service provider, provider's affiliate or subsidiary, search engine, or cloud service provider.

Age Registration and Verification for Creating an Account with a Digital Service Provider. A digital service provider may not enter into an agreement with a person to create an account with a digital service unless the person has registered the person's age with the digital service provider.

A digital service provider shall make commercially reasonable efforts to verify the age of the person creating an account with a level of certainty appropriate to the risks that arise from the information management practices of the digital service provider.

Parental Consent for Minors Under the Age of 17.  A digital service provider may not permit an account holder who is a known minor to be an account holder unless the known minor has the express consent from a parent or legal guardian of the known minor.

Acceptable methods of obtaining express consent of a parent or legal guardian include the following:

• coordinating a call with a known minor's parent or legal guardian over videoconferencing technology; or
• any other method of obtaining express consent as defined in rule adopted by the attorney general.

A known minor is defined as a child who is 16 years of age or younger and who the digital service provider knows to be under the age of 17 years.

Restrictions on the Use of Information of a Known Minor. A digital service provider that enters into an agreement with a known minor for access to a digital service must limit:

• collection of the known minor's personal identifying information to information reasonably necessary to provide the digital service; and
• use of the known minor's personal identifying information to the purpose for which the information was collected.

A digital service provider that enters into an agreement with a known minor for access to a digital service may not:

• use the digital service to collect the known minor's precise geolocation data;
• use the digital service to display targeted advertising involving unlawful material to the known minor; or
• share, disclose, or sell the known minor's personal identifying information unless required to:
  1. comply with a civil, criminal, or regulatory inquiry, investigation, subpoena, or summons by a governmental entity;
  2. comply with a law enforcement investigation;
  3. detect, block, or prevent the distribution of unlawful or obscene material to a known minor;
  4. block or filter spam;
  5. prevent criminal activity; or
  6. protect the security of a digital service.

Requirement to Develop and Implement a Harm Mitigation Strategy. In relation to a known minor's use of a digital service, a digital service provider must make commercially reasonable efforts to develop and implement a strategy to prevent or mitigate the known minor's exposure to content that promotes or facilitates the following harms to minors:

• consistent with evidence-informed medical information, self-harm, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors;
• patterns of use that indicate or encourage substance abuse or use of illegal drugs;
• stalking, physical violence, online bullying, or harassment;
• grooming, trafficking, child pornography, or other sexual exploitation or abuse;
• incitement of violence; or
• any other illegal activity.

The bill states this requirement does not require a digital service provider to prevent or preclude:

• any minor from deliberately and independently searching for, or specifically requesting, content; or
• the digital service provider or individuals on the digital service from providing resources for the prevention or mitigation of the above-described harms, including evidence-informed information and clinical resources.

Enforcement. The Office of the Attorney General may investigate violations and bring actions to enforce compliance and enjoin further violations. If a court finds a person violates the terms of an injunction issued pursuant to this section, it must impose a civil penalty of not more than $10,000 per violation.

The bill specifies it does not provide a private right of action for violations, except that if a digital service provider violates provisions created by the bill, the parent or legal guardian of a known minor affected by the violation may bring a cause of action seeking declaratory or injunctive relief against the digital service provider.

Short Title. The chapter created by the bill may be known and cited as the Washington Protecting Children Online Act.

Severability. The bill provides that if any of its provisions or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the bill or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected.

PRO: A number of parents came to me, rightfully concerned about their children's social media addictions. It feels to them that they've lost their relationship with their teenagers to a screen. I think we all relate to that. It's not my intention to say social media is bad, but it's a powerful tool. We know it's to some extent driving this increase in teenage mental health concerns around depression, cyberbullying, and anxiety. Imagine if you make a mistake as a teenager and it lives online forever. That's not something we had to deal with. We asking for the ability for parents to approve or disapprove whether their children can join social media accounts. This is modeled over other states, but I open to a discussion about the bill as long as it remains a real and rigorous way of communicating parental approval. I'm also open to working on concerns about data collection.

The Washington State PTA recently adopted a resolution on artificial intelligence and digital technologies that calls to reduce harms to children while preserving access to information, and this bill follows that direction. Internet platforms have few incentives to limit showing violent, sexual, or extreme content to minors. One reason is a lack of legal responsibility to identify who is a minor. They are incentivized to be blind to age. We don't take a position on the line drawn on what content should be prohibited, what the method is, or how to get parental consent, but we support compelling platforms to share responsibility with teachers and parents.

We know social media feeds children videos of made-up health advice, misinformation, conspiracy theories, debunked science, misogynistic propaganda, political violence, and borderline pornographic content. This happens without them even looking for them. I'm not getting my 13-year old a smartphone but all he has to do is hang out with a friend with an account. We can block most minors from using these platforms to begin with.

Since 2010, when smartphones and social media became accessible in our pockets, we've seen a 134 percent increase in suicide rates and a 188 percent increase in emergency room visits for self-harm for adolescent girls, as well as increases in depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health conditions for all children. Research shows just 35 minutes on social media causes addiction. We took bold steps in the 70s with smoking laws and it's time we do this today with social media.

My 12-year old son is frustrated that at hangouts and parties with his friends, they're increasingly just staring at screens instead of playing real-life games.

The platforms accelerate development of eating disorders and mental illness in unprecedented ways.

There are parallels between social media and mental health and cigarettes to lung cancer. The tobacco industry fought hard for over a decade, citing First Amendment violations.

This is a worldwide movement being adopted by countries like Australia and France, and states across our nation.

CON: The law in Mississippi is not being enforced due to constitutional questions. The courts have ruled that restrictions on speech that are not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest are unconstitutional. This bill goes into that category. The requirements apply not only to children but to any user.

The bill does not define what constitutes valid parental consent, specify acceptable verification methods, or provide a safe harbor for good faith compliance. Our members would be left with no defensible way to comply.

Courts have repeatedly protected the rights of young people, repeatedly opining the state does not have the power to condition a minor's access to ideas based on parental consent. The bill also creates a privacy paradox where the bill's intended to protect children, but it forces platforms to collect more sensitive data from everybody. It contradicts data minimization principles and creates a treasure trove of well-packaged data for bad actors.

Big tech companies certainly do prey on children, but this bill is not the right solution. The age verification requirements increases doxxing, stalking, identify theft, and immigrant profiling risks for kids, teens, and adults.

OTHER: We share the intent of keeping children safe online but the bill creates major risks for privacy and data security. It expands identity verification systems that reach far beyond minors. It sets no standards for how sensitive data is collected, stored, protected, or deleted. There are no retention limits, no security requirements, and broad exceptions allowing disclosure to law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The bill also gives the Attorney General broad authority to decide how parents must prove their identity. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the committee to make tweaks to make the bill better.

PRO: Senator Jesse Salomon, Prime Sponsor; Danica Noble, Washington State PTA; Meghan Kaul, Mothers Against Media Addiction; Megan Fisher; Tess Moore, Greenlake Primary Care; xingchun zheng; Manuela Slye; Delight Roberts.