Does Idaho HB 542 "Replace" Parents?

Spoiler alert: yep, it sure does.

Idaho just introduced a bill to “protect kids from social media”…

Finally, right? Something that actually targets Instagram and TikTok instead of making device manufacturers responsible for Meta’s mess. This is a far better idea than targeting device manufacturers like App Store Accountability Acts do.

H0542 would force platforms to get parental consent before kids under 17 can create accounts. It would strip out the addictive features like infinite scrolling and autoplay for children and make platforms verify ages and give parents monitoring tools.

Sounds like exactly what we need.

Except when you read the fine print, something feels off.

Yes, it makes social media companies responsible for age verification. And it makes them remove addictive features from kids’ accounts (that’s the right target, we don’t want device manufacturers to play police).

Except why do we need the government to do what parents can already do?

Because, while well-intentioned, this bill requires covered platforms to get “verifiable parental consent” before creating accounts for kids 16 and under. Platforms have to remove infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications for children’s accounts.

You know what else removes those features? Not giving your kid an Instagram account.

Instead, this creates a whole infrastructure for parental oversight through the platform. But parents already control whether their kid has a phone or apps.

You don’t need Meta to build you a “monitoring dashboard.”

You just… take the phone.

With this bill, companies like Meta have to estimate ages after 25 hours of use with 80% confidence. Then again at 50 hours with 90% confidence (keeps updating estimates every 100 hours).

But Meta already knows roughly how old their users are.

They collect birthdates. Their algorithms can infer age from behavior. They target ads to “13-year-old girls interested in fitness” with surgical precision. They’re not struggling to figure out who’s a kid.

The problem isn’t that social media companies can’t identify children. It’s that their entire business model depends on serving addictive algorithmic content to those children regardless of what harm it causes.

If you’re an engaged parent who monitors your kid’s online activity this bill gives you exactly zero new power you don’t already have.

You can say no to Instagram already. But if you’re a checked-out parent who gave unrestricted device access? You’ll click “approve” on the verifiable parental consent without reading it just like every Terms of Service you click through.

Your teenager will access social media through friends’ phones, web browsers, or the thousand workarounds kids have perfected.

Because the bill only covers accounts, not access. So the only thing this really accomplishes is forcing platforms to build expensive compliance systems while parents maintain the same level of actual control they always had.

Section 48-2106 says waivers of rights under this chapter are “void ab initio” and courts can’t enforce them.

Now there are two ways to read this:

(1) The harsh interpretation: the government is deciding that even if you as a parent review the terms, understand the risks, and consent to your 15-year-old having an Instagram account, that decision is automatically invalid as “contrary to public policy.” Your informed parental choices about your own child are void as a matter of law. The government overrides parental authority while claiming to protect it.

(2) The more charitable interpretation: the bill prevents platforms from pressuring parents into signing away the law’s protections through Terms of Service fine print. Meta couldn’t get you to contractually agree to let them skip removing infinite scrolling or waive your right to sue if they violate requirements. That would actually be protective.

But here’s where it gets murky.

The section says waivers of “any prohibition, requirement, or right to remedies” are void. So what counts as a waiver? Is your informed decision to let your kid have an Instagram account despite the law’s restrictions a “waiver” of protections? Or is it just parenting?

The bill requires verifiable parental consent to create accounts. So it recognizes parental authority to say yes. But then this section says parents can’t waive the specific protections the law mandates.

Maybe the intended reading is: you can consent to your kid having an account, but you can’t consent to Meta violating the specific requirements like removing addictive features.

That would be less about replacing parental authority and more about preventing platforms from exploiting parents with misleading contracts.

Either way, the ambiguity is a problem.

The bill also exempts accounts that have existed “continuously for at least seven years.”

So if your kid opened an Instagram account at age 10 (lying about their age, which happens constantly), by the time they’re 17 the platform has no obligation to verify anything. That exemption exists because forcing social media companies to age-verify millions of long-standing accounts would be impossibly expensive.

But it also means the kids who’ve been on these platforms longest get zero protections.

The bill also requires platforms to notify account holders before termination and give them 30 days to dispute age classification. This is a legal requirement, yes. But during the 30-day window the kid gets to keep using the platform exactly as before.

So we’re creating this massive regulatory apparatus that platforms can avoid by simply making age verification annoying enough that kids learn to game the system.

Private right of action with $10,000 statutory damages for reckless violations sounds tough, right? But Meta spent $24 million on lobbying in 2024 alone. More than Lockheed Martin. So they can afford armies of lawyers who will argue about what constitutes “reasonable means” for age estimation. Every case will get fought and every loss will get appealed.

Meanwhile, your 13-year-old is still scrolling through eating disorder content at 2am because you gave them a smartphone with unrestricted access and kept it in their bedroom.

You want to protect your kid from social media?

Don’t give them a smartphone until they’re older. Give them a flip phone if they need to stay in touch. Say no to social media and actually enforce it. Check their devices regularly. Keep phones out of bedrooms at night.

Those are parenting decisions that work immediately. You don’t need legislative infrastructure or enforcement mechanisms. Age estimation algorithms? Also not needed.

Idaho House Bill 542 treats the symptom instead of the cause.

And the cause? It’s parents handing their 12-year-olds unrestricted access to devices that Jonathan Haidt calls “the world’s most sophisticated drug delivery device” and then acting surprised when those kids develop anxiety and depression.

You made deliberate choices with predictable consequences.

It’s like giving your kid a handful of razor blades to play with and getting mad at the store who sold them to you when your kid gets hurt.

This bill targets the right entities. That’s progress. Removing infinite scrolling and push notifications from verified children’s accounts could reduce some addictive features. And if platforms can’t show targeted ads to kids, that removes one harm vector. Maybe that helps marginally.

But it’s still asking the government to regulate your kid’s social media consumption because you won’t.

And Meta will comply with the minimum requirements while finding new ways to maximize engagement and profit.

If this moves forward, platforms will figure out compliance. Lawyers will spend years in court arguing over definitions. Meanwhile regulations will get expanded to catch what the previous version missed, then expanded again when platforms find new workarounds.

But your kid will still be on Instagram unless you actually say no.

That’s the part no legislation can fix.

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TLDR Idaho H542:

1. Gives you zero new power - you already control whether your kid has a phone and social media

2. Has easy workarounds - kids access through friends’ phones, web browsers, and all the other methods bill doesn’t cover

3. Has a 7-year exemption backfire - because a kid who lied about their age at 10 gets zero protections by age 17 (the kids on platforms longest)

4. Has a 30-day loophole - legally the platforms must notify before termination, which means the kid gets to keep using it during the “dispute period”

5. Is compliance theater - platforms will build expensive systems while algorithms keep serving addictive content that falls just outside statutory definitions

6. Solves the wrong problem - platforms monitor because parents won’t

7. Lets social media companies win anyway - they’ll spend millions on lawyers and compliance, not fixing the harm their algorithms cause

8. Treats the symptom not the cause - because it regulates features while ignoring that parents handed kids unrestricted access to “the world’s most sophisticated drug delivery device”