HOUSTON — A series of new Texas laws are now in effect, including one that limits children's access to social media.
“It’s not just one party or the other bill. This is something that everyone agrees needs to be handled exactly the right way,” said University of Houston Political Science professor, Brandon Rottinghaus.
The new law is House Bill 18, also known as 'the Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment Act' or SCOPE.
“The balance here is, of course, about allowing for these companies to operate freely and about having people to have access to this as their First Amendment rights might allow,” said Rottinghaus.
Under the law, children must have a parent or guardian’s consent before they can create a new social media account and companies must give parents the ability to supervise the child’s use.
But Rottinghaus said the logistics of how this will work is still up in the air.
“The social media sites themselves, according to law, are the ones that have to police this,” said Rottinghaus. “That might mean they have to have a third party do it. It might mean they have to change internally how they allow people to onboard those different websites.”
While that gets sorted out, another part of the law aimed at limiting what minors can see on social media sites is on hold after being blocked by a federal judge on Friday.
In the meantime, some social media experts worry about how this sort of law can be implemented.
“It’s not going to be only affecting the kids, but it's going to be also affecting the adults,” said social media expert, Ernesto Verdugo.
Verdugo said he supports the intentions behind the law but believes it's not the answer when it comes to protecting kids online.
“The moment that the kid is not in front of you one way or the other, they're going to figure out how to, how to, access,” said Verdugo. “In my eyes, as a social media expert, the best thing to actually do is to actually have a clear and open conversation with kids so that they will know.”
The Boys and Girls Club of Houston recently conducted a youth survey. It said 50 percent of teens they spoke with said they felt angry, overwhelmed or anxious and that some of these feelings are tied to social media.
The Boys and Girls Club has a program that provides mental health experts for kids to talk to. They said this new law does not change their effort to support teens and kids when it comes to their mental health.