Oppose H.R. 10337 (16 & Up Social Media Act)

I'm writing to urge you to oppose H.R. 10337, the 16 & Up Social Media Act, currently before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. While I appreciate the stated goal of protecting young people online, this legislation takes a harmful approach that will ultimately do more damage than good. The bill's core problem is its "know or should have known" liability standard. This doesn't just create a bright age line—it forces platforms to implement age verification systems to avoid legal exposure. We've seen how identity verification vendors handle data: tens of millions of driver's license records have been leaked in breaches alone. Asking platforms to build this infrastructure means giving every teenager's identity a permanent digital file. Children can't rotate a government ID after a breach the way adults can change passwords. This also threatens free speech and anonymous participation. When platforms face liability for hosting underage accounts, they'll err on the side of removing anyone who might appear young. Adults with youthful appearances could lose their accounts entirely. The "five-day appeal" process doesn't fix someone whose voice has been silenced. The bill also preempts only conflicting rules while preserving state laws providing "greater protection." So we get a federal floor that still enables a patchwork of even stricter identification requirements across fifty states—a nightmare for compliance and privacy. Better alternatives already exist. Parents can use Apple and Google's built-in controls: download approvals, time limits, communication restrictions. Social apps can stay off devices until families decide otherwise. We should enforce existing criminal law against grooming and exploitation instead of building a national identity layer for platforms to "comply" with. And yes—we should punish platforms that misrepresent their products, but not hand them incentives to collect more personal information. Please vote no on this bill. We can protect children without compromising privacy, security, and free expression for everyone. Thank you for your consideration.