2026: Utah Leads the Nation on Social Media and Child Safety

2023: Utah Becomes First State to Regulate Social Media for Minors

Utah became the first state in the country to begin restricting how minors use social media accounts, passing two landmark bills in the same session.

HB 311, carried by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, enacted the Utah Social Media Regulation Act, making social media companies liable for harm caused to minors by addictive design features. Critically, it established a rebuttable presumption, shifting the burden of proof to the companies, not the families they harmed.

SB 152, carried in the House by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, required social media companies to verify user ages in Utah, obtain parental consent for minors, give parents access to their children’s accounts, ban targeted advertising to minors, and limit access hours.

SB 287, carried in the House by Rep. Susan Pulsipher, required websites that distribute pornography or other content harmful to minors to verify the age of their users before granting access.

2024: Stronger Utah Social Media Protections for Kids

After reviewing the 2023 legislation and consulting with experts, the Legislature enhanced HB 311 and SB 152 with stronger, more targeted laws designed to withstand legal scrutiny while expanding protections.

HB 464, carried by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, focused accountability on what the evidence shows causes the most harm: algorithms and engagement-driven design. The bill established a private right of action allowing parents to hold social media companies liable specifically for algorithmic harm to their children. It also required platforms to limit minors to three hours of daily use, restrict access between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., obtain parental consent, and remove engagement-driving design features – autoplay, infinite scroll, push notifications – from minor accounts.

SB 194, carried in the House by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, created an age assurance process for social media platforms and established default privacy settings for minor accounts: including disabled search indexing, direct message restrictions visible only to connected accounts, and encryption of minors’ personal data.

Parents received supervisory tools: the ability to set time limits, schedule mandatory breaks, view total usage, and see their child’s connected accounts. Social media companies were prohibited from collecting and selling data on minors without verifiable parental consent.

Legal challenges are an expected part of pioneering legislation. Both HB 464 and SB 194 are currently stayed pending a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

2025: App Store Accountability Act – Age Verification at Download

SB 142, the App Store Accountability Act, carried in the House by Rep. James Dunnigan, extended Utah’s protections to the point of download. App store providers, including the major platforms operated by the world’s largest tech companies, must now verify user age categories and, for minors, require a parent account affiliation. Parents must approve app downloads and purchases. App developers must age-rate their products, and parents must be notified when significant changes alter an app’s content.

The law recognized that protecting children on a platform is incomplete if nothing governs what gets onto their devices in the first place.

2026: Targeted Advertising Tax and Online Adult Content Protections

The 2026 session added two significant pieces to Utah’s framework.

SB 287, carried in the House by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, imposes a 4.7% tax on the Utah-based profits of companies that deliver targeted advertising to Utahns with revenue going directly into a Targeted Advertising Restricted Account. Funds support child literacy, youth mental health programs, civic education, youth sports and recreation, youth volunteerism, adoption and foster care, and public awareness campaigns about the effects of targeted advertising. The tax applies to entities making at least $1 million in targeted advertising revenue in Utah, or $100 million or more in total revenue.

SB 73, carried in the House by Rep. Steve Eliason, further strengthens Utah’s age verification requirements for adult content platforms. The bill imposes a 2 percent excise tax on revenues from online adult content, with proceeds funding mental health programs and enforcement of age verification requirements. It also prohibits platforms from encouraging users – particularly minors – to use VPNs to bypass age gates, and requires that any age verification methods used meet standards established by the Division of Consumer Protection.