GET ME REWRITE: Drooling GOP clown in Texas legislature wants to strip parental rights with bill to ban minors from using social media

 

Headline:  Dallas Observer, 7/8/2022

Looks like the long arm of the Texas government could soon try to snatch up your kid’s iPhone. 

 

 In a tweet earlier this week, state Rep. Jared Patterson announced that he’s got big plans for next year’s legislative session. The Frisco Republican said he’ll file a bill that would ban social media use for all Texas minors. 

Patterson’s utopia would see the minimum age for social media use raised from 13 to 18, when teens become legal adults. 

“It’s long past time to recognize the incredible harm social media is doing to the mental health of young Texans,” he said in a tweet. “Next session, we put an end to it.” 

The lawmaker’s tweet was in response to a post by a conservative think tank that argued Texas “should be the national leader on the issue of child online safety.” (The state can hardly keep kids from freezing to death during snowstorms or getting shot to death in schools, but that's offline.)