Proposed RESET Act Mandates Removal of All Social Media Accounts for Users Under Age 16

The proposed Reducing Exploitative Social Media Exposure for Teens Act (RESET Act) is straightforward: it bans social media platforms from letting anyone under the age of 16 create or maintain an account. If a platform knows a user is under 16, it must terminate that account. This isn't just about future users; platforms have 60 days after the law takes effect to identify existing under-16 accounts, 180 days to notify those users of termination, and then 30 days after notification to actually shut them down. The entire section is set to take effect one year after the bill becomes law.

The Digital Curfew: What It Means for Teens and Parents

This bill sets a hard line: if you’re 15 or younger, your account gets deleted. For platforms, this means a massive, mandatory age verification effort. They must have “actual knowledge or acted in willful disregard” of a user’s age to trigger the ban, which means platforms will likely need to implement more robust (and potentially invasive) age verification systems to protect themselves from enforcement actions. If you’re a 16-year-old whose older sibling used your phone number to sign up, or if the platform’s age verification is glitchy, you could get caught in the crossfire and wrongfully terminated.

For the millions of teens currently aged 13 to 15, this means losing access to established social circles, community groups, and communication channels they use daily. Imagine being a 14-year-old student who uses an Instagram group chat for homework or a young artist who built a following on TikTok—the bill mandates an immediate, federally enforced disconnect. While the intent is to protect young people from exploitation, the practical effect is cutting off an entire age group from major digital public spaces.

Data Deletion and the 90-Day Lifeline

The bill is clear about what happens to your data when your account is terminated: the platform must immediately delete all personal data collected from that user. However, there’s a crucial, slightly contradictory provision: for 90 days after termination, the platform must allow the former user to request a copy of their personal data in a “readable, understandable, portable, and machine-readable format.”

This creates a technical headache for platforms. They have to delete the data immediately but also retain the ability to retrieve and deliver it for three months if requested. For the average user, this means that while your profile and posts vanish instantly, you have a limited window to download your photos, messages, or other content before it’s gone forever. If you miss that 90-day window, your digital history on that platform is permanently erased.

Who’s Policing the Platforms?

Enforcement falls primarily to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), treating violations as an unfair or deceptive act under existing law. This gives the FTC significant power to levy fines and take action against platforms that fail to comply. Crucially, the bill also empowers state attorneys general to bring civil lawsuits to stop violations, seek damages, or ensure compliance on behalf of their residents. However, if the FTC or the U.S. Attorney General has already filed a federal case based on the same allegations, the state is blocked from proceeding.

This enforcement structure centralizes power at the federal level, an idea reinforced by the bill’s preemption clause: this federal law overrides any state or local laws that cover the same ground. So, if your state tried to pass a less restrictive law for 15-year-olds, the federal RESET Act would win out, ensuring a uniform, national standard for this specific regulation.