• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, September 24, 2024

Two lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require social platforms to warn users of potential mental health risks associated with social media.

The Stop the Scroll Act, unveiled by Senators John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) and Katie Britt (R-Alabama), specifically would require social platforms to inform users every time they access social apps about “potential negative mental health impacts.”

The warning labels would also have to provide access to resources, including the website and phone number of a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline system. The labels would have to remain visible until users either left the platform, or acknowledged the potential harm.

Fetterman and Britt are introducing the bill two weeks after a coalition of 42 attorneys general urged Congress to require warning labels on social apps.

Not everyone thinks warning labels are a good idea.

Todd O'Boyle, senior direct of technology policy at the tech industry-funded think tank Chamber of Progress, says efforts to require warnings “are premature, and don't fully appreciate all the ways that young people use social media.”

He adds that efforts to require warning labels might “misperceive all the benefit young people are receiving” from social media.

“Young people use the internet to find community and connection and support,” he says, adding that it's not clear how warning labels will address online bullying or other problematic activity associated with social media.

This measure comes as federal and state lawmakers are increasingly looking to regulate social media.

At the federal level, Congress is considering the Kids Online Safety Act, which would restrict social platforms' ability to use features such as notifications, automatic scrolling and personalized recommendations.

Several states have recently passed legislation aimed at regulating social media -- though most of those measures have been halted in court on First Amendment grounds.

Most recently, two weeks ago a federal judge blocked Utah from enforcing a law that would have restricted social platforms' ability to serve content to minors under 18.

That measure would have required platforms to limit the ability of minors under 18 to communicate with users who aren't “connected” to the minor -- essentially meaning within that minor's network. That restriction could only have been lifted by parents. The statute also would have required platforms to disable push notifications and refrain from automatically playing content on minors' accounts.