The law requires social media platforms to prevent children under 14 from creating accounts and to remove existing accounts. Additionally, parental or guardian consent is required for children ages 14 to 15 to create or maintain social media accounts, and platforms are required to delete accounts and personal information for this age group upon the teen’s or parent’s request.
Companies that fail to promptly remove 14- and 15-year-olds’ accounts could be sued on their behalf and must pay damages of up to $10,000 each. A “knowing or reckless” violation may also be considered an unfair or deceptive trade practice and is subject to penalties of up to $50,000 per violation.
The law also requires many commercial applications and websites to verify the age of their users, raising a number of privacy concerns. However, websites must offer users the option of “anonymous age verification,” defined as third-party verification that does not retain personally identifiable information after the task is completed.
This requirement comes into play if a commercial site contains “a significant portion of material harmful to minors,” defined as more than one-third of the content on the site clearly targeting porn sites. Such sites must ensure that users are over 18 years of age; however, news sites are exempt from this requirement. Violations are also subject to fines of up to $50,000 per violation.
Source: Ferra
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
