Arkansas Just Passed an Age-verification Social Media Law With Some Confusing Exemptions
upstart writes:
There's confusion over which companies will be affected:
The law requires social media companies that earn more than $100 million in annual revenue to work with third-party services to verify new account holders' personal information. This is done using "any commercially reasonable age verification method" or government-issued IDs such as photo IDs or driver's licenses. Current account holders won't be affected.
The law states that social media companies are defined as any online forum that lets users create public profiles and interact with each other through digital content.
CNN reports that in the final days of negotiations over the bill, Arkansas lawmakers approved an amendment that appears to exempt some of the world's biggest social media companies. Given all the concern over TikTok's influence and its links with China, it's surprising to see that social media platforms that permit users to "generate short video clips of dancing, voice overs, or other acts of entertainment in which the primary purpose is not educational or informative" are exempt. That would also seem to cover Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, as well as TikTok - but apparently not.
[...] Other exemptions include social media companies that "exclusively" offer subscription content, and those focused on "professional networking" and "career development" (i.e., LinkedIn). Companies that "exclusively offer" video gaming-focused social networking features aren't covered, either, which could include Twitch despite it not really being a social media platform.
At least it will protect the kids from all the remaining $100M/yr companies that weren't covered by the exemptions.
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