A Texas lawmaker has introduced a bill prohibiting minors from using social media accounts as school districts become a “hunting ground” for online dangers.
As school districts struggle to control the spread of cyberbullying, pornographic images and online exploitation among their students, Texas lawmakers could consider banning social media from minors, among other sweeping measures, in the upcoming legislative session.
Over the last decade, Texas lawmakers have attempted to slow the spread of social media’s harmful effects by criminalizing cyberbullying and preventing online platforms from collecting data on minors, the latter of which has faced court challenges by social media companies.
While law enforcement and prosecutors have traditionally been responsible for cracking down on these online dangers, lack of resources in those agencies has meant enforcement has fallen onto educators, who already struggle to meet the demands of instruction, let alone stay knowledgeable on all the ways children use the internet.
“Almost every kid comes to school these days, regardless of background, regardless of socioeconomic status, they have some type of smartphone device in their hand. So they will have access to unfettered content most of the time, no matter what we try to do,” said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers.
Lawmakers have suggested several initiatives next session to address the online dangers affecting Texas children, including a bill filed by Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, that would prohibit minors from creating accounts on social media sites and require age verification for new users. Other options include adding funds to internet crimes units in law enforcement agencies, banning the use of people’s likeness in artificially created pornographic images, and making people aware of the dangers of the internet.
“Social media is the most dangerous thing our kids have legal access to in Texas,” Patterson said in a news release.
While they welcome any efforts to reduce harm to children, school officials and cybercrime investigators say more needs to be done to hold social media companies accountable for enforcement.
“We need these businesses to be responsible business people and throttle some of this tremendously negative content, particularly when it comes to kids,” Capo said. “But, you know, they don’t want to do anything like that.”
Schools are hunting grounds
During a Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing in October, lawmakers listened to a litany of stories about how social media has affected young people in Texas: a middle school girl who developed an eating disorder after watching a TikTok video, a middle school boy addicted to cartoon pornography after his YouTube algorithm took him to a porn site, and a woman who testified to being groomed for sex work in high school as her images were posted on social media applications.
Most of these incidents had a starting point at school where children have frequent access to technology and teachers and administrators are too busy to provide oversight. Add in the fact that they know ways to circumvent campus firewalls, students are being groomed via social media on school grounds, said Jacquelyn Alutto, president of Houston-based No Trafficking Zone, during the hearing.
“Right now, schools are a hunting ground,” she said.
The Texas Tribune requested interviews with several school districts about online dangers in schools, including the Austin, Round Rock, Katy and Eanes school districts, but they did not respond. The Plano school district declined to be interviewed.
Last year, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Psychological Association, among other national organizations, called out social media platforms for undermining classroom learning, increasing costs for school systems, and being a “root cause” of the nationwide youth mental health crisis. The admonishment came after a report detailed how school districts across the country are experiencing significant burdens as they respond to tech’s predatory and prevalent influence in the classroom.
The same year, in an attempt to hold social media companies more accountable, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill 18, known as the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act. The SCOPE Act requires covered digital service providers to provide minors with certain data protections, prevent minors from accessing harmful content, and give parents tools to manage their child’s use of the service.
It also required school districts to obtain parental consent for most software and social media applications used in the classroom and to look for alternatives to the internet for instruction.
However, many of the family-friendly websites and games that children might use for entertainment are also rife with potential sexual predators who pretend to be children.
