Preventative Action

The Legislative Bills below are those which UTRSOL supports and or seek to amend/substitute in the law book of Utah. One of our goals and objectives is to pursue, provide, and support alternative means to the public and legislature ways to protect minors on social media and take preventative actions other than enacting legislation that tightens sex offense laws.

Social Media Regulation

These alternative means have been successful during the 2025 Legislative Session with the passage of S.B. 142 App Store Accountability Act and S.B. 178 Devices in Public Schools. They highlight examples of how legislation could be introduced and passed into law that would safe guard minors from interaction with the wrong population age by limiting time on devices in school and ensuring that only individuals of the appropriate age can acquire certain apps.

To take it one step further, UTRSOL seeks to pursue, provide, and support the prohibition of individuals under the age of [18, 16, or 14] from accessing social media platforms, aiming to address concerns about the mental health impacts of social media on minors. The NATIONAL LEGISLATION page discusses Florida's HB 3 Online Protections for Minors bill, passed in 2024, which limits minors of age [14] from accessing social media. Texas attempted to pass a more restrictive bill earlier this year (2025) during their legislative session, HB 186 Relating to prohibiting use of social media by children which sought to prohibit minors under the age of [18] from accessing social media platforms. Of late, Australia passed their Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill in 2024 that limited access to social media for minors under [16] years of age.

The Utah Legislature attempted to enact the Utah Social Media Regulation Act, Utah Code §§ 13-63-101 to 701. However, in December 2023, NetChoice – a trade association for Internet companies – filed a complaint and motion for preliminary injunction against the Act in the United States District Court for the District of Utah. NetChoice’s complaint alleges that the Act’s provisions are unconstitutional under the First Amendment and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Utah Legislature Repeals and Replaces Utah Social Media Regulation Act. UTRSOL supports this act as a means to increase preventative actions other than enacting legislation that tightens sex offense laws.

Sex Education Reform

To compliment these restrictions, UTRSOL also seeks to revive Utah's H.B. 177 Health Education Amendments bill that was proposed and rejected during the 2021 legislative session which adds consent, coercion, sexual violence behavior deterrence, and sexual assault mitigation strategies to the sex education curriculum. We also seek to advance comprehensive sex education into the curriculum to combat the rising sex offenses among Utah's youth population. Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is a curriculum -based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social aspects of sexuality. It is an critical component of sexual and reproductive health care. Youth need developmentally appropriate information about their sexuality and how it relates to their bodies, community, culture, society, mental health, and relationships with family, peers, and romantic partners. The support of legislative bills like H.B. 377, aimed at amending existing sexual offense laws which seeks to clarify and expand the definitions of consent and the circumstances under which sexual acts are considered non-consensual are such alternative means that UTRSOL supports to provide the public and legislature ways take preventative actions other than enacting legislation that tightens sex offense laws.

Public School Reading Material Regulation

Passage of H.B. 374 Sensitive Materials in Schools in the 2022 legislative session followed by Amendments added to the bill in 2024 with H.B. 29 constitute additional regulations and safety measures that provide the Utah government alternative means to the public ways to protect minors and take preventative actions other than enacting legislation that tightens sex offense laws. H.B. 374 do not speak directly to sex offense laws but they compliment safety and education which students in secondary schooling need to be safe guarded. UTRSOL, in supporting legislative bills like these, desires to pursue in tandem comprehensive sex education inclusion into the curriculum of secondary education.

Sex Offense Law Reform

Finally, UTRSOL believes that SB 155 during the 2025 legislative session had the right idea but wrong approach on implementation of reducing the amount of time that must elapse before an offender who is on the Offender Registry for an offense requiring lifetime registration to be able to petition for early removal from the registry. We believe a substitution which removes human trafficking and sexual abuse would be a more appropriate bill to support. Below are the links to the bills under this section.

Utah Legislative Bills

S.B. 142 Chief Sponsor: Todd Weiler, James Dunnigan (2025/Passed)

App Store Accountability Act, On March 26, 2025, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed into law SB 142, the App Store Accountability Act (the “Act”), enacting the country’s first state law that requires app store providers to verify the age of all users and places obligations on app developers.

S.B. 178 Chief Sponsor: Lincoln Fillmore (2025/Passed)

Devices in Public Schools, This bill establishes a baseline policy to restrict device use during classroom hours while allowing school districts the flexibility to create their own policies, ensuring they can meet the unique needs of their students.

Utah Social Media Act (2023)

S.B. 194 and H.B. 464 Social Media Amendments. During the 2023 Legislative Session Utah became one of the first states to regulate social media companies’ treatment of children with SB 152 and HB 311. Together, the bills enacted the Utah Social Media Regulation Act, Utah Code §§ 13-63-101 to 701.

H.B. 377 Chief Sponsor: Angela Romero (2025/Failed)

Sexual Offense Amendments. Modifies provisions concerning sexual offenses, focusing on the definition of consent and the impact of silence, lack of protest, or resistance in determining consent. The bill emphasizes that these actions alone do not demonstrate consent, and consent can be withdrawn at any time during sexual activity.

H.B. 334 Chief Sponsor: Carol S. Moss, Kirk A. Cullimore (2023/Failed)

Health Education Amendments, requires the State Board of Education to establish requirements for curriculum content developed by LEAs that instruct students in refusal skills, sexual assault resource strategies, the illegality of sending sexually explicit photos over the internet (sexting), and sexual violence behavior prevention.

H.B. 177 Chief Sponsor: Carol Spackman Moss, Kathleen Riebe (2021/Failed)

Health Education Amendments, Adds consent, coercion, sexual violence behavior deterrence, and sexual assault mitigation strategies to the sex education curriculum. Failed (7-4) in committee.

H.B. 374 Chief Sponsor: Ken Ivory, Todd Weiler (2022/Passed)

Sensitive Materials in Schools, prohibits "sensitive materials" in public schools. This law specifically targets instructional materials that describe or depict "sexually explicit conduct" or "sexual conduct" as defined in Utah's criminal code.

H.B. 29 Chief Sponsor: Ken Ivory, Todd Weiler (2022/Passed)

Sensitive Material Review Amendments, if at least three school districts or at least two school districts and five charter schools determine a book or other materials to contain “objective sensitive material” it would result in a ban of those materials in school districts statewide.

S.B. 155 Chief Sponsor: Todd Weiler (2025/Failed)

Sex, Kidnap, and Child Abuse Offender Adjustments, this bill reduces the amount of time that must elapse before an offender who is on the Offender Registry for an offense requiring lifetime registration is able to first petition for early removal from the registry and able to file an additional petition for early removal if the offender's previous petition is denied. Passed (5-3) in committees but did not get floor vote.