California lawmakers passed legislation Monday banning social media platforms from offering minors under 16 features like infinite scroll, autoplay and personalized feeds, sending the bill to Governor Gavin Newsom a week after Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle child safety claims brought by dozens of states.
The bill, AB 1709, cleared both chambers of the state Legislature with bipartisan support, according to POLITICO. It targets the design mechanics that critics say are engineered to maximize screen time among young users rather than restricting whether teens can hold accounts at all. Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, the bill’s Democratic author, said the measure responds to pressure from parents. “Parents are asking us to step up and protect their children from the harmful design choices built into today’s social media platforms,” he said. “We have a responsibility to listen and respond.”
The legislation diverges from approaches taken in Australia, France and Malaysia, which have moved to block minors from creating social media accounts outright. Lowenthal described his bill as narrower in scope: it “regulates how the platforms are designed for kids, not whether kids can access social media altogether.”
Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a joint author of the bill, said lawmakers needed to act independent of ongoing litigation against platforms. “At the end of the day, it is incumbent on lawmakers to actually follow through with more policies that are going to help protect kids, not just the courts,” he said. Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who also voted for the bill, framed the vote as a response to federal inaction: “It’s the entire institution that has failed to act,” he said, referring to Congress.
The bill’s passage follows Meta’s settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general over claims the company misrepresented the mental health risks its platforms posed to children. Meta valued that settlement at approximately $18 billion, payable over 10 years, with participating states guaranteed roughly $12.7 billion of the total. The remaining $5.3 billion is contingent on YouTube and TikTok adopting comparable safeguards, including daily time limits and age-assurance tools, and matching Meta’s contribution, split evenly based on each platform’s payment.
AB 1709 would apply similar design restrictions across the industry rather than to a single company, a distinction Ian Duncan of The Washington Post noted is likely to draw a First Amendment challenge in court. Unlike comparable laws passed in other states, the bill does not include a mechanism for parents to approve access to the restricted features on a teen’s account.
Newsom has not stated publicly whether he will sign or veto the bill, though he has previously voiced support for restricting social media access among younger teens and called on lawmakers earlier this year to pursue stronger youth safety guardrails. He has until September 30 to act on the legislation.
The bill arrives as Congress remains stalled on federal kids’ online safety legislation despite bipartisan interest, with platforms including Meta and Google lobbying lawmakers in both Washington and Sacramento over competing approaches to regulation.
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
California lawmakers passed legislation Monday banning social media platforms from offering minors under 16 features like infinite scroll, autoplay and personalized feeds, sending the bill to Governor Gavin Newsom a week after Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle child safety claims brought by dozens of states.
The bill, AB 1709, cleared both chambers of the state Legislature with bipartisan support, according to POLITICO. It targets the design mechanics that critics say are engineered to maximize screen time among young users rather than restricting whether teens can hold accounts at all. Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, the bill’s Democratic author, said the measure responds to pressure from parents. “Parents are asking us to step up and protect their children from the harmful design choices built into today’s social media platforms,” he said. “We have a responsibility to listen and respond.”
The legislation diverges from approaches taken in Australia, France and Malaysia, which have moved to block minors from creating social media accounts outright. Lowenthal described his bill as narrower in scope: it “regulates how the platforms are designed for kids, not whether kids can access social media altogether.”
Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a joint author of the bill, said lawmakers needed to act independent of ongoing litigation against platforms. “At the end of the day, it is incumbent on lawmakers to actually follow through with more policies that are going to help protect kids, not just the courts,” he said. Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who also voted for the bill, framed the vote as a response to federal inaction: “It’s the entire institution that has failed to act,” he said, referring to Congress.
The bill’s passage follows Meta’s settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general over claims the company misrepresented the mental health risks its platforms posed to children. Meta valued that settlement at approximately $18 billion, payable over 10 years, with participating states guaranteed roughly $12.7 billion of the total. The remaining $5.3 billion is contingent on YouTube and TikTok adopting comparable safeguards, including daily time limits and age-assurance tools, and matching Meta’s contribution, split evenly based on each platform’s payment.
AB 1709 would apply similar design restrictions across the industry rather than to a single company, a distinction Ian Duncan of The Washington Post noted is likely to draw a First Amendment challenge in court. Unlike comparable laws passed in other states, the bill does not include a mechanism for parents to approve access to the restricted features on a teen’s account.
Newsom has not stated publicly whether he will sign or veto the bill, though he has previously voiced support for restricting social media access among younger teens and called on lawmakers earlier this year to pursue stronger youth safety guardrails. He has until September 30 to act on the legislation.
The bill arrives as Congress remains stalled on federal kids’ online safety legislation despite bipartisan interest, with platforms including Meta and Google lobbying lawmakers in both Washington and Sacramento over competing approaches to regulation.
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Check Out Our Podcast