Social Media

Colorado appropriators supported bills on the future of the state's high-cost support mechanism (HCSM) at Friday committee meetings. The HCSM, which provides subsidies to a dozen rural telecom providers, is scheduled to sunset Sept. 1. However, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 8-0 for a bill (HB-1234) to prolong the fund indefinitely. It previously passed the House but will need another vote there to conform with Senate tweaks. Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee voted 7-4 for HB-1336, which transfers authority for awarding grant money from the HCSM to the state broadband office. A broadband deployment board in the governor's IT office currently distributes the money. Senate appropriators also voted 7-1 for a social media bill, HB-1136. The House previously passed the bill, which would require the state’s education department to create elementary and secondary school curricula on social media’s mental health issues (see 2403120065). In addition, it would require social media platforms to display pop-up warnings when users younger than 18 spend more than one hour on a platform during a 24-hour period and when they are active on social media between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

House Commerce Committee members on Thursday vowed to find a bipartisan solution for updating Communications Decency Act Section 230.

An Alabama bill aiming to protect kids’ online neared the finish line after it passed the state Senate unanimously on Tuesday. HB-164 would require a reasonable age-verification method to restrict those younger than 18 from accessing pornographic websites (see 2403210064). The House approved the bill Feb. 29 but must vote again to align it with a short Senate amendment, including a clarification about the appropriate venue for the bill’s private right of action. A day earlier, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed a similar bill requiring age verification for adult websites (HB-2586). “The legislation goes against settled case law,” wrote Hobbs. “Children’s online safety is a pressing issue for parents and the state,” but the answer “should be bipartisan and work within the bounds of the First Amendment, which this bill does not.” In addition, the Democratic governor vetoed the Republican-controlled legislature’s HB-2793, which would have required school policies restricting social media access and limiting cellphone usage. “This legislation establishes an unnecessary mandate for an issue schools are already addressing,” said Hobbs.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court should reverse the FCC's ruling authorizing E-rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2312200040) by interpreting the Communications Act “in accordance with its ordinary meaning,” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (Texas) and six other Republican senators wrote in an amicus brief Tuesday (docket 23-60641). The brief supports Maurine and Matthew Molak's petition to defeat the Oct. 25 declaratory ruling (see 2404030010).

A Tennessee bill restricting children on social media passed the Senate in a 30-0 vote Monday. HB-1891, which Gov. Bill Lee (R) supports, would require parental consent for kids younger than 18 on social networks (see 2403120065). The bill would take effect Jan. 1. Meanwhile, a Tennessee panel will study a broadband reporting bill during the summer, the state legislature’s House Commerce Committee decided by voice vote Tuesday. HB-2910 would have required state and federal broadband grant recipients to list unserved areas where they plan to deploy high-speed internet using government cash, and to say when they aim to have service in those places. The Senate unanimously passed the cross-filed SB-2907 last week (see 2404020060). But at the House Commerce Committee’s final meeting of this session, Chair Kevin Vaughan (R) said more time is needed to develop how the reporting will work. “We all need to know more about broadband throughout the state,” so legislators will work “diligently” on the bill over the summer, he said. Lawmakers should move quickly because of "disparities and inequities that exist among the haves and have-nots,” said Rep. Goffrey Hardaway (D). The legislator said he distrusts summer studies, which sometimes are used to “dismiss a bill altogether.” The chair assured Hardaway that won’t be the case here. Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) supports continued work on the bill, Vaughan said. "We're off to do a real summer study."

Some Minnesota lawmakers want to craft a net neutrality law even as the FCC prepares to vote on restoring federal open-internet rules. At a Tuesday meeting, the legislature’s Senate Commerce Committee laid over a bill (SF-3711) banning state contracts with companies that violate open-internet rules. While the action indefinitely postponed further Senate action on the measure, the proposal remains part of a pending House Commerce Committee omnibus (HF-4077). Also at the Senate Commerce hearing, members postponed action on a social media bill and advanced legislation meant to stop copper theft.

A school bus is neither a classroom nor a library and that “makes short work of this case under basic principles of administrative law,” the opening brief said Tuesday (docket 23-60641) in support of a 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals petition to defeat the FCC’s Oct. 25 declaratory ruling authorizing E-rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2312200040).

Gov. Brian Kemp (R) should veto a Georgia social media bill that would require age verification and prevent those younger than 16 from getting accounts without parental consent, tech industry groups said this week. The Computer & Communications Industry Association sent Kemp a veto request Tuesday. NetChoice asked for the same in a letter Monday. Age-verification and parental consent requirements in HB-351 “significantly fail to meet constitutional standards,” CCIA said. The group supported another part of the bill that would require digital citizenship curriculum in schools. NetChoice, which has sued other states over similar requirements, warned that SB-351 “would immediately invite legal challenges.”

The FTC’s proposal that regulates tactics social media companies use to maximize engagement with young users will draw legal challenges if codified, former agency officials and industry representatives said Tuesday during the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Public Policy and Legal Summit.

Expect the U.S. Supreme Court to support the White House and reject Missouri’s First Amendment challenge claiming administration officials colluded with Big Tech to censor COVID-19 content, legal experts said in interviews last week. Others in the case were less certain, saying the high court provided mixed signals during March 18 oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri (docket 23-411) (see 2403180051).