Newsom signs law to regulate children's social media use

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law Friday to reduce social media use among children, the state's latest attempt to regulate the medium amid growing concerns that excessive use is harming young people.

The Protecting Our Children from Social Media Addiction Act would prohibit online services and applications from offering “addictive feeds” to minors unless they are unaware the user is a minor or have obtained parental consent. The bill passed the Democratic-led state legislature last month with a comfortable majority.

“Every parent knows the damage social media addiction can do to their children – isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “With this law, California is helping to protect children and teens from intentionally designed features that encourage these destructive habits.”

The bill defines an “addictive feed” as “an Internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application that recommends, selects, or prioritizes multiple media items created or shared by users for display to a user based on information provided by the user or otherwise linked to the user or their device, unless a specific condition is met.”

It bans notifications from platforms from midnight to 6 a.m. and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September to May, times when children are at school, unless the user has parental consent. Platforms must give parents the ability to select specific times when their child will not receive notifications, limit access to the platform's feed, view the number of “likes” and set their child's account to private.

The bill, which cites another California social media law from 2022, “prohibits companies from using children's personal information in a way that the company knows or should know will cause substantial harm to a child's physical or mental health or well-being.” Critics of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act point out that the “substantially harmful” wording is too vague and fear violations of the First Amendment. The law has been challenged in court.

A spokesman for Democratic Sen. Nancy Skinner, who sponsored the bill, said the new law does not provide a “private right of action,” which allows any citizen to file suit to enforce a law. Instead, the state's attorney general will be empowered to enforce it through civil lawsuits.

The law takes effect on January 1, 2027. Skinner's spokesman said the attorney general still has time between the signing of the law and its entry into force to finalize the rules for punishing a social media company and the details of parental consent for age verification.

Skinner's spokesman also said the bill would require age verification only if a minor wants to use regular social media settings rather than settings for minors.

Supporters of the California bill praised its passage last month, saying it would strengthen children's online safety and privacy. James P. Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that helps children, parents and schools navigate the media, called the fact that the bill requires social media companies to offer minors chronological feeds rather than algorithmic feeds a positive feature.

“This means kids will see more content they want to see – from their friends or others they've signed up for – than what Meta and other big companies want kids to see because they make so much money getting them addicted online. This law is good for kids' mental and physical health,” Steyer said in a press release.

But technology advocacy groups fear a chilling effect. Amy Bos, director of state and federal affairs at NetChoice, wrote in a letter to Newsom this month that the bill would impact the platforms' ability to exercise editorial discretion, which is “at the core of First Amendment protections.”

“SB 976 prohibits websites from using 'addictive feeds' to distribute content to their users. But these 'addictive feeds' are the result of content that is 'selected' and 'prioritized' for users. In short, restricting websites' distribution of information directly impairs their ability to exercise editorial discretion,” Bos wrote.

California is the latest state to enact social media regulations due to concerns about children's use. In some states, however, these efforts have run into legal challenges over the constitutionality of the laws. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in the next legislative session addressing Texas' age verification requirements for sexually explicit websites. The outcome of that case could determine the fate of state social media bills that would impose strict age verification requirements on online platforms.

Meanwhile, Instagram announced this month that it would roll out new “teen account” settings that would automatically make millions of teen accounts private and limit what kind of content all users under 18 can see on the app. In a sign that some companies are already looking to enforce restrictions regardless of legal action, they'll be told to leave the app. Teen users will also receive time-limit reminders that will prompt them to leave the app when they've spent an hour on the app each day. Additionally, the app will default to “sleep mode” between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., which will mute notifications and send automatic replies to direct messages.

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