Senate Bill 396 to create the Social Media Safety Act was introduced, on 9 March 2023, to the Arkansas State Senate and was subsequently passed by both houses and sent to the Governor for signature, on 7 April 2023. In particular, the bill provides definitions including those for 'commercial entity', 'minor', 'reasonable age verification', and 'social media company', among other terms. More specifically, the bill establishes that a social media company must not permit an Arkansas user who is a minor to be an account holder on the social media company's social media platform, unless the minor has the express consent of a parent or legal guardian, noting that a social media company must verify the age of an account holder. More specifically, the bill provides that reasonable age verification methods include:

• a digitised identification card, including a digital copy of a driver's license;
• government issued identification; or
• any commercially reasonable age verification method.

Notably, the bill stipulates that an internet service provider, or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or search engines, will not violate the bill solely by providing access, connection to or from a website, or other information or content on the internet, or a facility, system, or network that is not under that internet service provider's control, including the transmission, downloading, intermediate storage, access software, or other service that provides access or connectivity, to the extent the internet service provider is not responsible for the creation of the content or the communication on a social media platform.

You can read the bill here and track its progress here.

UPDATE (17 April 2023)

Bill on social media safety signed by Governor and becomes law

The bill was signed, on 13 April 2023, by the Arkansas Governor and will enter into effect on 1 September 2023.

You can read the Act here and access its history here.