SALT LAKE CITY — The state of Utah is launching an ad blitz warning parents of the harms social media platforms may be causing youth.
At a news conference at the Utah State Capitol on Thursday, Governor Spencer Cox unveiled the campaign that is being produced by his Office of Families, the Utah Department of Health & Human Services and the Utah Department of Commerce. The 30-second commercials feature children wearing masks as they doomscroll on apps and endure hurtful comments while a narrator warns that children may put on a brave face, but they're being served up content that can impact their mental health. It encourages people to get offline and make in-person connections.
Gov. Cox said ads will be appear on TV, billboards and, ironically, social media platforms themselves.
"It’s really important to meet people where they are, right? To understand where people are getting their information," he said. "I always want to clarify: social media isn’t inherently good or bad, it’s how we use it and the content. There are some bad parts of social media. I would say the algorithms are bad, the addictive qualities are bad."
The ad campaign is a salvo in the state's ongoing war against social media platforms that political leaders have accused of harming Utah's youth with addictive algorithms and content that impacts their well-being including mental health, lack of sleep, and body image. State leaders have cited surveys about how much time youth spend online, as well as one citing 88% of parents saying social media has a detrimental affect on children.
The state has threatened lawsuits against multiple apps and platforms. Recently, Utah's Department of Commerce disclosed it has been actively investigating TikTok when it asked a judge to hold the app in contempt of court for refusing to comply with subpoenas for information. On Thursday, state commerce director Margaret Woolley Busse told FOX 13 News the company has yet to cooperate.
"They haven’t been responsive. We hope they will be responsive. That’s always been our intention to not be punitive but to actually get them to respond to our subpoenas," she said.
The Utah State Legislature this year passed a number of bills aimed at youth access to social media, including blocking ads targeting youth by those apps and platforms and demanding age-verification to use them. Social media companies have insisted they are seriously taking steps to curb harmful impacts of their platforms on youth, but have expressed concerns about age-verification. They warn of privacy and free speech violations if people are forced to give a platform a government ID.
Recently, a federal judge rejected a lawsuit over Utah's new law requiring age-verification to access adult content websites. The sponsor of the social media age-verification law said it could help with any other legal challenges the state might face.
"It does give me confidence," said Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork. "It was a good decision for the pornography age verification bill. I think the principle for age-verification in social media is very similar."
Sen. McKell said he is discussing the laws with social media platforms. He revealed he was meeting next week with representatives of Meta, which owns Facebook, Instragram and the new social app Threads.
Politically, concerns about social media harms has gotten bipartisan support in Utah and across the nation. Gov. Cox's office insists its latest campaign against social media harms is about empowering parents with good information to intervene in their children's online activities.
"We need parents to understand that this is something that their kids are struggling with," said Aimee Winder Newton, the director of the Governor's Office of Families. "The biggest thing we want to do is emphasize human connection."
Gov. Cox is known for being very active on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Asked about his own social media use, he said he has curbed it recently. He also disclosed he does not allow his 16-year-old daughter to have a social media account.
"I think it would be very helpful to severely limit or completely eliminate the use of social media," he said. "What we know from the research is that the increases in anxiety, depression, self-harm have just skyrocketed over the last 10 years, coinciding perfectly with the invention and the proliferation of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, all those social media platforms."
