Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The RESET Act would prohibit covered online platforms from allowing individuals under age 16 to create or maintain accounts or profiles. Platforms would have specified timelines to identify existing minor accounts (within 60 days), notify users (within 180 days), and terminate such accounts (within 30 days after notice), and would be required to delete personal data on termination while allowing a 90-day window for the minor to request a copy of their data.
Age threshold and scope: liberals want a higher protected age (under 18) and stronger protections; conservatives oppose a broad ban and prefer parental control or targeted measures.
In the House, the bill’s child-safety framing and concrete regulatory approach could attract bipartisan interest from members focused on youth protection, but the sweeping nature, compliance costs for the tech sector, potential opposition from civil liberties groups, and the preemption clause make floor passage moderately difficult without substantial coalition-building or amendments.
The RESET Act would prohibit covered online platforms from allowing individuals under age 16 to create or maintain accounts or profiles.
Platforms would have specified timelines to identify existing minor accounts (within 60 days), notify users (within 180 days), and terminate such accounts (within 30 days after notice), and would be required to delete personal data on termination while allowing a 90-day window for the minor to request a copy of their data.
The Federal Trade Commission would enforce the statute as an unfair or deceptive practice under the FTC Act, and state attorneys general could bring parens patriae suits with coordination rules; federal law would preempt state laws on the same subject.
Judged solely on its content and typical legislative dynamics, this bill is a significant, high-impact intervention that would impose major operational requirements on many online services and raise contentious constitutional and federalism questions. While child-safety goals can mobilize support, the broad prohibition, technical implementation challenges (age verification, 'knows' standard), strong potential industry opposition, and likelihood of intense legal and policy debate reduce the near-term probability of enactment absent substantial revision, compromise, or package inclusion.
How solid the drafting looks.
Age threshold and scope: liberals want a higher protected age (under 18) and stronger protections; conservatives oppose a broad ban and prefer parental control or targeted measures.
These are examples from the analysis, not a ranked list of the most-affected groups.
Age threshold and scope: liberals want a higher protected age (under 18) and stronger protections; conservatives oppose a broad ban and prefer parental control or targeted measures.
A mainstream progressive would likely view the bill favorably overall as a federal step to protect young teenagers from social media harms and to strengthen data deletion and privacy rights for minors.
They would welcome the FTC enforcement mechanism and the deletion requirement, because those provisions align with priorities to limit corporate extraction of youth data and reduce exposure to harmful content.
However, they might criticize the bill for setting the cutoff at under 16 rather than 18, and for the preemption clause that could prevent states from adopting stronger protections.
A pragmatic moderate would see clear public-interest goals in protecting younger teens from exploitative platform practices but would worry about implementation details, costs, and unintended consequences.
They would value a single federal standard enforced by the FTC but would seek clarity on which services are covered, how platforms reliably and privately determine age, and the compliance burden for smaller providers.
A centrist would weigh benefits for youth safety against risks of driving minors to unregulated services or creating heavy compliance costs without funding for enforcement.
A mainstream conservative would be skeptical of the bill’s federal mandates and enforcement structure, viewing it as an expansion of federal regulatory power over private businesses and parental authority.
They may acknowledge the goal of protecting children, but would emphasize concerns about government overreach, burdens on businesses (especially without clear, low-cost age-verification alternatives), and limits on parental choice to allow teenagers supervised access.
They would also be troubled by the broad enforcement tools (FTC plus state AG suits) and the preemption clause that removes state-level policy flexibility in both directions.
Reached or meaningfully advanced
Reached or meaningfully advanced
Still ahead
Still ahead
Still ahead
Judged solely on its content and typical legislative dynamics, this bill is a significant, high-impact intervention that would impose major operational requirements on many online services and raise contentious constitutional and federalism questions. While child-safety goals can mobilize support, the broad prohibition, technical implementation challenges (age verification, 'knows' standard), strong potential industry opposition, and likelihood of intense legal and policy debate reduce the near-term probability of enactment absent substantial revision, compromise, or package inclusion.
The bill has not accumulated any surfaced votes yet.
Age threshold and scope: liberals want a higher protected age (under 18) and stronger protections; conservatives oppose a broad ban and pre…
Judged solely on its content and typical legislative dynamics, this bill is a significant, high-impact intervention that would impose major…
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