Sponsors (3)
The bill creates a federally backed study that can produce evidence and policy recommendations to better protect children online while narrowing which services are covered—but it raises privacy oversight concerns, potential industry compliance costs, taxpayer-funded administrative expenses, and possible regulatory gaps or ambiguity for hybrid services.
Parents and children: A federally mandated study will document how platforms collect and use data about under-17s, giving evidence that can justify new privacy protections.
Children and caregivers: The study will identify links between platform use and youth mental health and highlight age-differentiated effects, informing age-appropriate safeguards or interventions.
Policymakers and the public: The statute directs actionable policy recommendations to Congress based on the study, enabling targeted regulation or guidance grounded in evidence.
Children and families: Exempting the study from the Paperwork Reduction Act may permit broader data collection with less usual oversight, raising privacy and administrative-burden risks for youth data.
Tech companies and users: Study findings could trigger future regulatory constraints that increase compliance costs and force product changes across the industry.
Consumers and regulators: Explicitly excluding broadband providers and email services may create regulatory gaps allowing services that operate like social platforms to avoid obligations.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Requires the Federal Trade Commission, working with the Department of Health and Human Services, to study how social media platforms are used by people under age 17. The study must examine what personal data platforms collect, how algorithms use that data (including for targeted ads), patterns of daily use and differences by age under 17, and links between platform use and mental health; the agencies must report findings and any policy recommendations to Congress within three years. The bill also defines what counts as a “social media platform” and exempts the study from the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Introduced November 25, 2025 by Cliff Bentz · Last progress November 25, 2025