Bill Analyses and Ratings

Bill Summary

House Bill 542, known as the ‘Stop Harms from Addictive Social Media Act,’ creates an entirely new chapter in Idaho Code (Chapter 21, Title 48) establishing comprehensive regulations on large social media platforms with respect to minor users. The bill defines key terms including ‘addictive interface features’ (such as infinite scrolling, auto-play video, push notifications, and engagement metrics), ‘covered social media platforms’ (those generating at least $1 billion in annual advertising revenue), and establishes a tiered age-estimation system requiring platforms to assess whether account holders are children (16 years of age or younger) based on usage thresholds called ‘first trigger dates’ and ‘second trigger dates.’ Platforms must obtain verifiable parental consent before creating or maintaining accounts for children, set privacy settings to maximum by default for child accounts, and are prohibited from displaying addictive interface features or profile-based paid commercial advertising to children.

The bill establishes robust enforcement mechanisms, including a private right of action for children and parents to seek declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and damages including mental health harm and emotional distress. Statutory damages of $10,000 are available for reckless or knowing violations, with punitive damages possible for patterns of such conduct. The Attorney General is empowered to investigate and pursue violations under Idaho’s Consumer Protection Act. The bill also includes a safe harbor for platforms that use reasonable means and efforts to comply, a three-year statute of limitations, and provisions voiding any contracts or arbitration clauses that attempt to waive the rights established by the chapter. The act takes effect July 1, 2026, under an emergency declaration.

Overall Assessment

While this bill addresses significant concerns about child safety and the potential harms of addictive social media design on minors, it does not align with the specific policy priorities outlined in the evaluation metrics used for scoring. The metrics focus on areas such as government accountability, agriculture, water rights, natural resources, energy, property rights, wildlife, and similar Idaho-specific policy concerns, none of which are implicated by this legislation. As a result, the bill receives a score of zero across all evaluated categories, not because it lacks policy significance, but because its subject matter falls outside the scope of the metrics being applied.

The bill’s focus on regulating large technology companies’ interactions with minors is a consumer protection and child welfare measure that, while potentially impactful for Idaho families, does not directly advance or conflict with the enumerated policy priorities in the evaluation framework. Categories such as the American Family, Health and Welfare, and Law and Order might appear tangentially related, but the bill’s specific mechanisms—platform liability, age estimation algorithms, parental consent requirements, and advertising restrictions—do not substantively engage with the criteria defined under those metrics as applied here. The zero scores reflect the absence of direct relevance to the evaluated policy areas rather than any negative assessment of the bill’s intent or merit.

This is the engrossed version of H0542.