• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, May 9, 2025

Texas on Friday became the second state to pass a bill that would require app distributors like Google and Apple to verify all users' ages and then block minors under 18 from downloading apps without parental permission.

The App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420) now heads to Governor Greg Abbott for signature.

Utah passed a similar bill in March, and Louisiana advanced a comparable measure this week. Earlier this month Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Representative John James (R-Michigan) introduced a national version of the bill.

The tech-funded policy group Chamber of Progress criticized the Texas measure, arguing that age-verification mandates and parental consent requirements for apps are unconstitutional.

“The bill violates our First Amendment rights,” Kouri Marshall, the Chamber of Progress's director of state and location government relations for the central region, tells MediaPost.

“It restricts access to constitutionally protected speech, even for adults,” he adds.

A number of states throughout the country have recently passed laws that either restrict teens' use of social media, or regulate the ability of social platforms -- but not app stores --  to serve content to teens.

Many of those laws are currently facing court challenges, and so far judges have blocked all or parts of those laws in Ohio, Arkansas, Utah, Texas and California.

In 2011, the Supreme Court struck down a California law that would have prohibited the sale of violent video games to minors, without parental consent.