Okla. Committee Advances Two Social Media Bills Protecting Children
The Oklahoma Senate Technology and Telecommunications Committee cleared a pair of social media bills Thursday, despite their sponsors admitting the legislation needs work before coming to the floor. One bill addresses cyberbullying while the other is about age-verification, which many states have addressed this year (see 2501170053).
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HB-1388 would enact the Protecting Oklahoma's Children on Social Media Act of 2025, and require social media companies to complete data protection impact assessments on how their platforms might influence children. It previously passed the House 75-14 (see 2503260016).
"We have an issue with cyberbullying, we have issues with harmful use of technology, internet and social media, especially on school devices," said Sen. Aaron Reinhardt (R), one of HB-1388's sponsors. "The bill was designed to put some guardrails on that...my ask for you guys today would be to pass this with title stricken, and allow me time to work on it."
When asked if there were any First Amendment concerns, Reinhardt acknowledged those could come up, but that the bill avoids them. "Anytime we start looking at potentially limiting somebody's ability to express their opinion, even electronically, we do run into those issues," he said. "We've narrowed that down to school-owned devices. We think there's probably some ground there, that if we're just affecting the devices that are owned by the school district, that that could help."
Sen. David Bullard (R) had several questions about the bill, including its definition of mental health, whether using social-emotional learning (SEL) to tackle social media would lead to negative uses of SEL in the future and whether the bill would be used as "thought police" to regulate children. Reinhardt said that was not the intent or heart of the bill, but that it would be changed to more clearly reflect cyberbullying.
"This is very much a work in progress," he said. "This is allowing us to get a little more time. You will not see this on the floor without pretty significant revisions and changes."
Despite First Amendment concerns, Bullard said: "I will be a yes on the bill today, just out of respect for the author. But there's got to be some pretty massive changes to this in order to get it to a direction that I can do anything with this." HB-1388 passed the committee 6-2, and will now advance to the Senate floor.
HB-1275 is one of three bills introduced in Oklahoma that require age verification to access social media platforms (see 2501170053). Rep. Chad Caldwell's (R) bill cleared the House Government Modernization and Technology Subcommittee in early February (see 2502050040), and the House Commerce Committee advanced it with a vote 12-2 in early March (see 2503060022).
There was much less debate on HB-1275 than the earlier HB-1388, and the committee cleared it with a 6-2 vote.
"This bill is a work in progress" but the gist of it is "prohibiting children under 16 from possessing social media accounts," and requiring parental consent for 16- and 17-year-olds to have accounts, said Sen. Ally Seifried (R), one of its sponsors. "I look forward to working with you all in the interm on this and I ask for your 'yes' vote with the knowledge that I will continue to work on this."