That's a job for the parents though isn't it? And for early teenagers people seem to forget what positive influence the internet could have on their lives. Eg. many IT workers started fiddling around with stuff when they were quite young.

Maybe stop for a second and consider how this bill is meant to act in concert with library book bans and cuts to school curriculum. Conservatives are coordinating bills and policies to cut off access to important knowledge about marginalized communities.

The only way the far-right can build a young political base is if they can keep entire generations ignorant and uneducated, and unfortunately kids in red districts can’t rely on getting the education they need to be informed citizens from schools.

To clarify, I 100% think this bill is bad for adults, privacy, and the internet.

However...

"The end result of this law would likely be that a huge number of young people—particularly the most vulnerable—would lose access to social media platforms, which can play a critical role for young people in accessing resources and support in a wide variety of circumstances"

Social Media has a documented, well-studied, negative effect on young people's mental health. We really could and should be doing more as a society to prevent young people from using it / pressuring social media platforms to fix the inherently negative issues with social media. This bill isn't the answer, but acting like kids and teens should have free reign of web apps that are known to be bad for them isn't the answer either.