A Bill to Prohibit Social Media Accounts for Minors Under 16
Bars platforms with >1M U.S. users from creating or maintaining accounts for users under 16.
No covered platform shall create, retain, or recommend content to an account whose verified user is under 16 years of age.
Platforms must verify age via government ID or a federally approved third-party identity service.
The FTC may fine violators up to $50,000 per affected minor account.
$120 million to the FTC for FY26 to establish a Minor Online Safety Division.
Effective 18 months after enactment.
Mechanical parts, sourced & timed
Use this as your pre-round checklist. Memorize the source citation. Time yourself to the delivery target.
- Bill / Number
- H.R. 1042 — A Bill to Prohibit Social Media Accounts for Minors Under 16
- Funding source
- $120M FTC appropriation for FY26 to establish the Minor Online Safety Division.
- Timeline
- 18-month implementation runway.
- Plausible — age verification tech exists; legal challenges likely.
- Enforcing agency
- Federal Trade Commission.
- Yes — FTC already enforces COPPA for under-13.
- Penalty for non-compliance
- Civil penalty up to $50,000 per affected minor account.
- Source citation
- U.S. Surgeon General Advisory (Murthy, 2023), 'Social Media and Youth Mental Health' — hhs.gov.
- Delivery time (read aloud)
- 1:10 (70s)
Mandatory age verification creates a privacy nightmare — every adult must hand over ID to use Twitter.
The Surgeon General's 2023 advisory found 95% of teens use social media and rates of teen depression have doubled since 2007 — the harm is established. On verification, NIST has certified privacy-preserving zero-knowledge ID tech that doesn't store user identity. Privacy isn't the actual trade-off.