Advocacy group says Youngkin should consider amending social media safety bill passed by General Assembly

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- An online safety group is asking Governor Glenn Youngkin to consider making changes to a bill passed by the General Assembly that would limit minors under 16 to one hour per day per social media platform unless their parents approve more or less time on each app.

In a letter, the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) said Youngkin should consider adding language that would “urge platforms to create age-appropriate experience online, couples with screen time limits.”

“Excessive screen time is just one issue that children face when they’re online and it doesn’t address the issues while they are online, whether that time limit is one hour or six hours. So we want to encourage platforms to create age-appropriate experiences for children,” Marissa Edmund, FOSI’s State Policy Lead, told 8News.

Edmund added that the governor may want to think about creating a more standardized way for parents to regulate their kids’ time on social media.

“Children have dozens if not hundreds of these apps on their devices and parents would need to go in and toggle this one-hour default, either increase or decrease for each app,” Edmund explained.

However, the bill’s author Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg (D-Henrico), says he wants the bill to stay as written.

“It’s really that hard for a parent to have a conversation three times if the kid has three apps or to click the button three times for the three different apps?" VanValkenburg questioned.

Plus, VanValkenburg says the bill was carefully crafted to avoid legal challenges for violating the First Amendment.

“We really wanted to make sure that this was a bill that could get through the courts and go into effect right away. We don’t want to get everything bottled up and not actually protect kids,” VanValkenburg told 8News.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Governor Glenn Youngkin said, “Governor Youngkin is currently reviewing the 917 bills the General Assembly sent to his desk. It’s common that during this time, hundreds of stakeholders write letters seeking action.”