Iowa Poll: Most favor requiring parental approval for kids to have social media accounts

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A majority of Iowans support legislation that would require children to have their parents’ permission to have social media accounts, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.

House File 2523, introduced in the Legislature Feb. 1 and sponsored by more than a dozen Republicans, is meant to give parents and guardians more oversight over their child’s internet usage on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. The bill would allow the Iowa attorney general and users to sue social media companies for violating the parental authorization rules.

The Iowa Poll asked Iowans whether they favor or oppose legislation that would require parental approval for people under 18 to have a social media account.

More than half of Iowans, 55%, say they favor the bill, while 42% oppose it. The remaining 3% are not sure.

The Iowa Poll, conducted by Selzer & Co., surveyed 804 Iowans from Feb. 25-27. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Support among Iowa parents with children under 18 is similar to support from all adults, with 57% of parents in favor and 41% opposed.

Logan Grove, a 37-year-old parent and poll respondent from Pella, favors the bill, saying it would provide parents a “leg up” on monitoring kids’ social media usage.

“For a child to get their hands on social media at a young age without some sort of parent control is ... opening Pandora's box,” Grove said. “I mean, there's too much stuff on there that they can get their hands on already by just doing a Google search.”

Grove acknowledges pros and cons to the “whole electronic world.” Grove grew up in the Myspace era, which he said was a way to connect with friends. And now his 10-year-old son has a Snapchat account and occasionally watches TikTok but hasn’t asked for other social media accounts.

Grove says social media has lost its “roots,” instead becoming a place filled with negativity and political rhetoric. It also opens kids up to scammers and predators, and takes away from “life outside,” he said.

“But I think because these kids are sucked into it, they're not like the way we were growing up. We were outside, we weren’t sitting in front of the TV all the time,” he said. “And now they see nothing but negative stuff; well, their lives are negative because of it.”

The poll results reflect differences across party lines, with 61% of Iowa Republicans in favor of the bill, while 35% oppose it. In contrast, only 39% of Democrats support the bill, while a majority (55%) do not.

Among independents, 57% favor the bill, while 42% oppose it.

Support for the bill also varies among age groups, the poll shows. Fifty-nine percent of Iowans ages 45 and older support the legislation, while 52% of Iowans under age 35 oppose it.

Malcolm MacDougall, a 26-year-old parent from Cedar Rapids, said on its face, the legislation sounds like a good idea, but he questions how it might be implemented and how it may encroach on privacy.

“Logistically speaking, the only way that this can really be reinforced requires giving up so much personal liberty to sort of a probably unaccountable government agency that I don't feel comfortable with, especially in its current form,” he said.

But MacDougall says generally, social media platforms should be “wiped off the face of the planet.” He takes several precautions in his online presence, like using a VPN and avoiding posting pictures of his 1-year-old daughter online.

What would the social media bill do in Iowa?

If passed, the bill would allow parents to revoke social media permission for their children at any time.

Social media companies would be forbidden to collect data on children who created accounts without permission from their parent or guardian and would be required to provide a parent with a password or other ways to access and monitor their child’s posts, setting, messages and time spent on the platform.

Under the legislation, Iowa's attorney general would have authority to bring a civil lawsuit against any company that violates the parental permission requirements and seek damages totaling $1,000 per violation.

Iowans harmed using the platform also would be able to file lawsuits and seek damages of either $10,000 for each violation or more for actual damages if a court decides that the company's violation was a direct cause of the harm.

The bill has garnered support from conservative religious groups, including The Family Leader, Iowa Catholic Conference and Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Those in opposition include TechNet, a trade group whose members include tech companies and social media providers.

The bill passed out of committee but has not been taken up by either chamber.

Virginia Barreda is the Des Moines city government reporter for the Register. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2.

About the Iowa Poll

The Iowa Poll, conducted Feb. 25-28, 2024, for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 804 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted households with randomly selected landline and cell phone numbers supplied by Dynata. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent American Community Survey estimates.

Questions based on the sample of 804 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the true population value by more than plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error.

Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit and, on digital platforms, links to originating content on The Des Moines Register and Mediacom is prohibited.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Poll: Social media accounts for kids should need OK from parents