Privacy & Cybersecurity Law Blog

Update: On April 2, 2025, the Virginia legislature declined to adopt Governor Youngkin’s amendments to S.B. 854, and returned the bill back to the Governor for consideration.

On March 24, 2025, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin asked the Virginia state legislature to strengthen the protections provided in a bill (S.B. 854) passed by the legislature earlier this month that imposes significant restrictions on minors’ social media use.

The bill would amend the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (“VCDPA”) to require social media platform operators to (1) use commercially reasonable methods (such as a neutral age screen) to determine whether a user is a minor under the age of 16; and (2) limit a minor’s use of the social media platform to one hour per day, unless a parent consents to increase the limit. The bill would prohibit social media platform operators from altering the quality or price of any social media service due to the law’s time use restrictions.

The Governor declined to sign the bill and recommended that the legislature make the following amendments to enhance the protections in the bill: (1) raise the covered user age from 16 to 18; and (2) require social media platform operators to, in addition to the time use limitations, also disable (a) infinite scroll features (other than music or video the user has prompted to play) and (b) auto-playing videos (i.e., where videos automatically begin playing when a user navigates to or scrolls through a social media platform), absent verifiable parental consent.