Cybersecurity Policy Report, Massachusetts Senate Passes Bill Aimed at Protecting Youth on Social Media, (Jul 10, 2026)
The Massachusetts state Senate voted 38-2 this week to pass a bill that would establish new requirements for social media platforms in Massachusetts to protect minors from potentially addictive features and enhance privacy.
SB 3164 sets forth obligations for social media platforms to use “commercially reasonable and technically feasible” methods to determine if a user is a minor, while allowing users to opt out of such methods. For users identified as minors, platforms would be required to set default safety settings that disable addictive features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, and push notifications during late-night hours, and require periodic reminders of usage time.
Additional privacy protections imposed by the legislation would restrict the visibility of minors’ content and geolocation data, with certain changes to these settings only permitted with verifiable parental consent. In addition, the bill would prohibit covered operators from degrading service quality or increasing prices for users who retain these default safety settings.
The bill would further require social media platforms to provide the state attorney general with quarterly de-identified aggregate data on minors’ usage, including age breakdowns, time spent, and changes to default settings, and require the state attorney general to make his data publicly available.
In addition, the bill authorizes the attorney general to bring civil actions for violations, with penalties of up to $5,000 per non-compliant user account and up to $1 million per day for failures to report required data.
News: StateLegislation DataPrivacy