Mastodawn

If you are in Massachusetts please call your House representative to oppose this. The Senate ban on cell phone use in schools (not happy about that myself) has grown a monstrous ban on social media use for kids under 14, "among the most restrictive in the entire country" according to its own Democratic advocates, featuring age verification for adults and a requirement platforms "give parents access to data submitted by minors" (in other words, out every queer kid).

https://www.wcvb.com/article/mass-house-social-media-ban-children-under-14/70941188

Mass. lawmakers to vote on 'restrictive' social media ban for kids

"This ban would be among the most restrictive in the entire country," senior legislative leaders said about the proposal.

WCVB

Show thread

Andrew Geng

@mcc Called my rep and left a voicemail. Thank you for posting this. I think it's this one, if anyone wants to track its progress?

https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/S2581/BillHistory

Beware it's a little misleading: downloading the PDF appears to give you the July 2025 version but today's "Read second" history entry seems to say they presented the H5349 version, which is the only place the age verification text appears.

Show thread

mcc 21h ago

@pteromys I believe you are linking the Senate version and the age verification is in the House version. Hence S and H in the name.

Show thread

Andrew Geng 20h ago

@mcc That would make sense. The closest thing I can find to a House version is https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H5349 where the age verification text gets introduced, but I don't think I've quite nailed it—all the House activity today and the like 30 additional proposed amendments seem to be getting posted only on the Senate version. Maybe merging all the changes is a manual process and there won't be a merged version posted for a while.