House Rep. Robert Mercuri speaks during a news conference at the state Capitol in June.

Pennsylvania may join the states aiming to place roadblocks in the path of teens who want to join social media sites.

House Rep. Robert Mercuri, R-Wexford, recently introduced House Bill 2553 to limit social media platform membership to those ages 14 and older. Social media companies would also have to require users to have an account to use the platform and certify that users are at least 14 years old by verifying the account holder’s driver’s license or other photo identification.

Parents would be able to request a child’s account be deleted, with companies required to comply within 10 days. Companies would also be required to provide a reasonable, accessible and verifiable means by which a parent can make a request under this subsection.

“There is no doubt of the outsized role that social media has come to play in our lives and the lives of our children,” Mercuri wrote in his co-sponsorship memorandum. “There are clear and demonstrated harms to children who utilize these platforms, a fact which has been known by social media companies for years. Attempts by these companies to curtail such harms failed to alleviate the problem and actually made it worse. Despite this, these companies have viewed children as ‘a valuable but untapped audience.’ When confronted with the possibility of accountability for the harms perpetuated, one company even attempted to drive a manufactured partisan wedge between a bipartisan issue in order to stall federal policy changes. In light of this, it is incumbent on us to proactively protect our children from such predatory practices.”

Last week, Meta announced it is making Instagram teen accounts private by default as it tries to make the platform safer for children. Anyone under 18 who signs up for Instagram will be placed into restrictive teen accounts and those with existing accounts will be migrated over the next 60 days. Teens in the European Union will see their accounts adjusted later this year.

According to the Associated Press, Meta officials acknowledged that teenagers may lie about their age. Company officials said Meta will require them to verify their ages in more instances, like if they try to create a new account with an adult birthday. The company also said it is building technology that proactively finds teen accounts that pretend to be grownups and automatically places them into the restricted teen accounts.

The announcement comes as the company faces lawsuits from dozens of U.S. states that accuse it of harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.

With the latest changes, Meta is giving parents more options to oversee their kids’ accounts. Those under 16 will need a parent or guardian’s permission to change their settings to less restrictive ones. They can do this by setting up “parental supervision” on their accounts and connecting them to a parent or guardian.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said last week that parents don’t use the parental controls the company has introduced in recent years. Meta’s Naomi Gleit, head of product, said she thinks the teen accounts will incentivize parents to start using them, according to the Associated Press.

“Parents will be able to see, via the family center, who is messaging their teen and hopefully have a conversation with their teen,” she said. “If there is bullying or harassment happening, parents will have visibility into who their teen’s following, who’s following their teen, who their teen has messaged in the past seven days and hopefully have some of these conversations and help them navigate these really difficult situations online.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.