Governor Tim Walz signed House File 4138 on Tuesday, turning Minnesota into the latest state to demand that social media platforms profile every user who logs on.
The law, which takes effect in July 2027, forces platforms with at least 10,000 account holders or $1 billion in annual revenue to estimate the age of all Minnesota users, obtain parental consent before anyone under 16 can hold an account, and disable a list of features the legislature has labeled “addictive.” It passed the state House 132-2 and the Senate 66-0.
We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.
The bipartisan consensus is remarkable given what the bill actually requires. Buried beneath the child protection language is a surveillance apparatus that applies to every user, not just minors.
When you create an account on a covered platform, the law demands you declare your month and year of birth. That’s just the beginning. Once you’ve spent 25 hours on the platform within six months, the company has 14 days to estimate your age using “reasonable efforts, taking into consideration available technology and the data in the possession of the covered social media platform.”
If the platform can’t reach 80% confidence that you’re 16 or older, you get classified as a child and locked into restricted mode.
Hit 50 hours, and the confidence threshold rises to 90%. Still not verified? The age estimation repeats every six months for the first seven years your account exists, or more often if the platform runs any demographic analytics on your profile.
That means platforms are legally required to continuously analyze how you behave, what content you engage with, and who you communicate with for the better part of a decade. The law creates an obligation to surveil that didn’t exist before.
The mechanisms available for “verifiable parental consent” come from the COPPA 1.0 framework which speaks volumes about the privacy costs this law is willing to impose.
Parents can sign a consent form, hand over credit card information, submit a copy of a government-issued ID alongside a face scan, or verify their identity through video conferencing.
Hellbound and Down 