House lawmakers show bipartisan support for proposed warning labels on social media

Tabbatha Urbanski planned her son’s 18th birthday celebration and funeral the same week.

Social media fueled his depression and was the avenue he used to connect with a drug dealer. Holding back tears Thursday, she described how he battled addiction. He was excited about his future after completing rehab, but was struggling on the day he died. He bought from a dealer on Snapchat what he thought was Percocet, but it was fentanyl.

She found him dead on his bed the following morning.

“I have to live with that picture of my baby boy in my mind for the rest of my life,” she told the House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee.

Rep. Zack Stephenson (DFL-Coon Rapids) sponsors HF1289 to require social media platforms to have a warning label and notify the user about the amount of time they’ve spent on it every 30 minutes.

Receiving committee approval, the bill was sent to the House Health Finance and Policy Committee.

The evidence is clear on the negative impacts of social media, especially for children. Stephenson said the average teenager spends 4.8 hours a day interacting with social media, and several studies have documented the link between excessive social media use and poor mental health outcomes including loneliness, depression, anxiety, eating disorders and self-harm.

People in the future will question social media use today the same way people today look back at the prevalence of smoking in the 1950s and ‘60s, he said.

“Fifty years from now, they’re going to look back and go, ‘Why were they letting teenagers spend five hours a day on TikTok? That’s insane.’”

Zach Lilly, deputy director of state and federal affairs at NetChoice, said the warning label would be a constitutional violation.

Social media is a speech platform and any attempt to regulate social media sites will run into the First Amendment. The warning label would also be controversial because there aren’t any studies saying there’s negative impacts from social media use, he said.

“Americans have a constitutionally protected right to express themselves and engage in the expression of others,” he said.

But legislators and other testifiers took issue with Lilly’s assertions.

“There’s no scientific evidence? That’s not true. There’s plenty of evidence and go to the schools, you’ll see it,” said Rep. Ron Kresha (R-Little Falls).

Stephenson rejected the idea that a warning label violates the First Amendment. “The government can regulate speech if it has a compelling state interest and what could be more compelling than protecting our kids?”

Social media companies say they’re taking steps to protect kids, but the reality tells a different story, said Erich Mische, CEO of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education.

Social media platforms, he added, are engineered for addiction and have algorithms designed to manipulate users. Social media is filled with a “house of horrors” of predatory behavior on children.

“The time for trusting Big Tech is over. The time to regulate and enforce is now. Every click has its cost.”