From left: Pediatrician Dr. Meghan Repp and Rep. Zack Gramlich, R-Fort Smith, present legislation they say will protect children’s privacy and mental health from online threats before the Arkansas House Committee on Aging, Children and Youth, and Legislative Affairs on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
An Arkansas House committee approved two bills Wednesday that mimic stalled federal legislation aimed at regulating companies’ online interactions with children.
House Bill 1717 and House Bill 1726 passed the House Committee on Aging, Children and Youth, and Legislative Affairs with no audible dissent and will go to the full House next.
HB 1717 is the Arkansas Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, and HB 1726 is the Arkansas Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Both have bipartisan sponsorship.
KOSA’s provisions include:
- Putting social media accounts’ default settings at the most protective level for minor users
- Allowing parents to monitor their children’s account settings
- Restricting minors’ ability to make financial transactions online
- Prohibiting companies from advertising drugs, alcohol, tobacco or gambling to minors
- Requiring social media algorithms to be transparent, meaning users would be able to know why they are receiving the content in front of them
If an online platform is found to have violated KOSA, it will have 90 days after receiving notice from the state to resolve the problem without facing legal action from the Arkansas attorney general, according to HB 1726.
Rep. Zack Gramlich, a Fort Smith Republican and the bills’ lead sponsor, said KOSA should protect minors from online content that contributes to mental health issues, including “anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use and suicidal behaviors.”
Software on mobile devices is designed to keep people using them as much as possible, Gramlich said.
“I’m an adult and I choose to interact with that,” he said. “A 13- or 14-[year-old], et cetera, does not have the cognitive and developmental ability to really understand how this is not good for their development and how these companies are using them for money.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
HB 1717 follows the lead of U.S. Congress’ attempt to expand on the existing federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which applies to children under 13. The expanded legislation is nicknamed “COPPA 2.0” and would apply to children ages 13 to 17.
The bill would ban technology companies from collecting data from Arkansas minors except under specific circumstances, such as for financial transactions. They would also be barred from retaining that data and disclosing it to third parties that use the information in advertising targeted to children.
Companies would be required to provide notice and obtain consent if they are collecting minors’ data under permissible circumstances, HB 1717 states.
Parents would be able to report to the state attorney general if websites that their children use do not follow the regulations laid out in HB 1717, and the AG could bring a civil lawsuit seeking damages, Gramlich said. He also said Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office does not have any problems with the bill.
State agencies are exempt from HB 1717 so they can reach children online, Gramlich said, such as state-funded higher education institutions advertising their academic programs or the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission advertising its services.
Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said one of her priorities is reducing minors’ access to cellphones and social media. In February, she signed bipartisan legislation to ban students’ access to cellphones and personal electronic devices during the school day.
Children as young as two years old use mobile devices daily, and 97% of teenagers use the internet daily, said Dr. Meghan Repp, a Bryant pediatrician expressing support for both bills on behalf of the Arkansas chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Repp said social media has its benefits for teenagers, such as social connection, civic engagement and creative expression, but it also poses the risks of hate speech, predation and disinformation.
“One of the things that we see very frequently in our office is children who are searching for information about something [such as] how to eat healthy, and then over time it becomes the platforms introducing more and more information about how to become anorexic,” Repp said.
Other legislation
Gramlich initially introduced both bills in January and amended them six times each before withdrawing them from consideration and reintroducing the amended versions Monday. Sen. Justin Boyd, also a Fort Smith Republican, is the bills’ Senate sponsor.
House Minority Leader Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock, said in December that he would sponsor KOSA during this year’s legislative session. Collins is among three Democratic co-sponsors of HB 1717 and HB 1726 along with Rep. Joy Springer and Sen. Clarke Tucker, also of Little Rock.
Gramlich said both bills are “proactive” measures in case the federal bills they are based on move slowly through Congress or do not become law at all. The federal versions of KOSA and COPPA 2.0 passed the U.S. Senate last year but died in the U.S. House.
Repp said HB 1726 goes “above and beyond” the federal KOSA because it would create a Kids Online Safety Council of nine people appointed by the Arkansas Secretary of Commerce. The panel would be responsible for identifying “emerging or current risks of harms to minors associated with online platforms” and recommending research and prevention methods.
The council would be required to include parents, youth, educators, privacy experts, mental health experts, state executive branch officials, representatives of online platforms covered by the bill and “representatives of communities of socially disadvantaged individuals” as defined in federal law, including racial minorities.
HB 1717 would complement the Social Media Safety Act of 2023, a Republican-led and Sanders-supported law that would have been the first in the nation to require minors to receive parental permission before signing up for a social media account. A federal judge blocked the law in August 2023 before it was set to take effect.
Sanders said in January, during her State of the State address, that the Legislature should amend the Social Media Safety Act “so that it’s no longer held up in court and can begin to be enforced.” Gramlich said in an interview that he is not aware of current legislative efforts to do so.
Questions
Rep. Randy Torres, R-Siloam Springs, asked how social media companies know when users are minors if there is no age verification requirement. Repp said no social media company would be able to argue that they did not know if a user was a minor.
“These companies 100% know when it’s a minor to the point that they can almost pinpoint the exact age of a child,” she said. “They can pinpoint the age of a child, they can pinpoint whether it’s a male or a female, they can pinpoint a lot of other very specific characteristics of this child.”
Rep. Matt Duffield, R-Russellville, asked Gramlich how parents can currently know if their children’s data is being stolen. Gramlich said this is only possible if parents are actively engaged with their children’s online activity.
Rep. Dolly Henley, R-Washington, asked why the bills do not have emergency clauses, which would allow them to go into effect immediately upon Sanders’ signature.
Both bills’ effective date is July 1, 2026. Gramlich said giving technology companies “some time to make substantive changes to how they operate” is one reason those companies are not fighting against the legislation.
Besides Repp, the only person to speak on either bill was Sara Davis, representing Scouting America, formerly Boy Scouts of America. Davis said she supported HB 1717 but wondered if it applied to online chat mechanisms powered by artificial intelligence that could collect minors’ data and provide them with harmful content. Gramlich said these entities might be covered by the bill, but if not, he expects them to be covered by future legislation he plans to introduce.
Rep. Jessie McGruder, D-Marion, said he fully supported the legislation as a father of six.
“One way I figured out our data was being compromised was when my son started getting information in the mail,” McGruder said. “As proactive parents, we started telling them to stay off [certain] websites and stop putting things in.”
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.