Parental Approval for Youth Social Media Act of 2026

This bill aims to protect children under 16 from potential mental health and developmental harms associated with social media use by requiring platforms to obtain verifiable parental consent . Social media platform providers must ensure that any user they know or should know is a child has parental authorization to create or maintain an account. Upon receiving consent, platforms must establish the child's account as a parent-supervised account , which includes tools for parents to manage privacy settings, set time limits, control direct messages, approve purchases, and view their child's activity. Platforms are also mandated to take reasonable steps to determine a user's age and verify parental consent, with strict rules preventing the use of this collected information for other purposes and requiring its deletion once the user turns 16 or deletes their account. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is authorized to promulgate regulations detailing acceptable methods for age determination, consent verification, and minimum requirements for parent-supervised accounts. Violations of these provisions will be treated as unfair or deceptive acts under the Federal Trade Commission Act, allowing for enforcement by the FTC. Furthermore, state attorneys general are empowered to bring civil actions to enjoin violations, compel compliance, and seek damages on behalf of state residents, while notifying the FTC of such actions. The bill defines a "social media platform" broadly but specifically excludes educational platforms, email, text messaging services, video conferencing, and online gaming where social interaction is incidental to the primary function.