Hello again everyone, I have a few updates as well as a heads up that I am planning to makes some changes to the petition in the next few days. First off I want to thank everyone who shared this issue with those you know and for filling out a witness slip for the house committee hearing on 3/19/26. By then there were 1032 filled out in opposition to this bill with only 5 supporting it. Sadly it did not have the desired impact.

During the hearing they did not call this bill for a vote or review. It is my belief that there was so much opposition towards it that would be required to be entered into the record that they decided to skip it for that session. When a witness slip is filed it is only valid for the session that it was filed for. This means that unless we continue to file these witness slips for every committee hearing then our voices will not be heard. The good news is that if you also submitted written testimony, that will remain in their system, but you must file a  slip for the next session too. These slips take less than 2 minutes to fill out, and I highly recommend that everyone fills them out for every scheduled session which I will link below with a quick guide.

Now onto the petition changes. I was just made aware of another bill as well, HB5066, the Social Media Age Restriction Act. This proposes that anyone under the age of 17 not be allowed to have any social media accounts. I feel that a blanket law like this puts children at just as much risk as allowing them onto the platform, but in a different form. While I agree the that there should be age restrictions on social media for children, I feel that should be something inforced by parents as previously stated. There is also the issue of a lack of research on how removing social media would impact them. Restricting access when they are younger also poses the risk of being overwhelmed once access is granted, and may make them more vulnerable to scams as we have seen with some adults who got access to social media later in life. This bill also would seem to rely on the initial bill we are fighting and get the users age from the OS, so opposing this seems to make sense via connection. My biggest fear with these bills is that they will be the starting point, and not too far down the road they will evolve to go past age assurance and reach a point of age verification which is much more of an attack on our free speech and privacy.

My last issue with this bill may be the biggest, and that is how social media in defined.

"Social media platform" means a public or semi-public Internet-based service or application that has users in this State and on which a substantial function of the service or application is to connect users in order to allow users to interact socially with each other within the service or application. For the purposes of this definition, a service or application that provides email or direct messaging shall not be considered to a "social media platform" on the basis of that function alone.

I feel this definition is far too broad, and could extend to many things beyond what we would traditionally consider social media. I am not a lawyer, but it seems that unless the platforms main purpose is for messaging specific people, and it is used to socialize with other users at large it could be classified as social media. We could see this extend far beyond what we would expect. Imagine banning anyone under the age of 17 from online gaming or forums, and while I believe that both reddit and discord are technically considered social media, they are used by many to find communities for hobbies, learning, and support. In my eyes this is a clear overreach, and given how much of our world has moved onto the internet, the social impact this would have on children and young adults in particular is unknown.

Before the government does anything like this they should be required to do research on the consequences, and clearly define what platforms this would impact. I know some "children" have fears that removing them from social media would remove their voices from current and future issues. I think that the children effected should be part of this conversation. They should have a chance to share how social media has impacted their lives, both good and bad.

Seeing as everyone here has already agreed to support this I feel it only fair to give the chance to share your thoughts on adding this additional issue to our petition. I have made a google form for you to share your thoughts on this if you wish. If there is not considerable push back on the issue I will be updating the petition in the next day or 2.

Finally, here is the updated info on how to fill out witness slips for all upcoming hearings on this issue.

1. go to https://www.ilga.gov/house/committees/Hearings/3062
2. Select the date of the hearing and click on "Details"
3. Scroll down to the row for the bill you wish to create a witness slip for
4. On the very right of that row will be a "+" icon, click on it
5. Fill out your personal information on the witness slip
6. Under "Position" select "Original Bill" for the legislation and "Opponent" for the position
7. If you would like to provide written testimony to be entered into the record for the hearing if/when the call the bill, select either "Oral In Person" if you plan to attend the hearing, or "Written Statement Filed" if you plan to write testimony to submit vie email, otherwise select "Record Of Appearance Only"
   1. If you did plan to submit written testimony then write it out, save it as a PDF
   2. Name the document "HB [Bill Number Here] Opponent [Your Name].pdf
   3. Email it to the Judiciary - Civil Committee at: judiciarycivilcommittee@hds.ilga.gov
8. Repeat these steps for each of the bills you have an issue with
9. go back to the main page and make sure to do the same for all of the hearing dates, each hearing has different witness slips even if they are for the same bill

Keep sharing this.

Keep fighting this.

Keep making a difference.