AUSTIN (KXAN) — Due to a Texas social media safety law, Meta has made changes to its features on Facebook and Instagram, a Meta spokesperson told KXAN Monday.
House Bill 18 is a new state law designed to protect children from harmful online content.
The “Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment” — or “SCOPE” Act — requires digital service providers to obtain parental permission before letting minors online. Platforms would be required to include in their user agreements an option for parents to permanently enable certain content settings.
The following statement was released from Meta and can be seen below:
Due to new laws in Texas, people in the state may experience some changes to our services including how teens and parents access and use our apps.
Rachel Holland, a Meta spokesperson
Supervision features for Facebook and Instagram were set in place for Texas, Florida and Connecticut. However, the features are more extensive in Texas, according to the Meta website .
Extra supervision features on Facebook gives parents the right to request the following for teens 18 and under:
- See how much time teens spend on Facebook and Messenger and can set time limits
- See and update settings
- Choose whether a teen can or cannot make payments
- Download teen’s information
- Delete teen’s account
Extra supervision features on Instagram give parents the right to request the following for teens 18 and under:
- See how much time teens spend on Instagram and Threads and can set time limits
- See and update teen’s settings
- Choose whether teens can make payments
- Download teen’s information
- Delete teen’s account
Extra supervision features for the Meta Quest gives parents the right to request the following for teens 18 and under:
- See how much time teens spend on the headset and set time limits
- See and update teen’s settings
- Choose whether teens can make purchases
- Download teen’s information
- Delete teen’s account
Meta added it believes “parents should approve their teen’s app downloads” and supports federal legislation requiring app stores to get parents’ approval for teens under 16 downloading apps.
Last week a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in connection with the the new law. In response to the injunction, Paxton argued the plaintiffs “lacked standing” to bring forth the lawsuit and that “HB 18 should not be classified as a whole,” as many provisions are not content based and therefore survive strict scrutiny “to the extent the First Amendment applies at all.”
Ryan Chandler contributed to this report