California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill prohibiting social media platforms from providing “addictive feeds” to minors without parental consent

09/27/2024 / By Laura Harris

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed new legislation that would limit the social media usage of minors in the state.

Senate Bill 976, dubbed the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, would make it unlawful for social media services to provide “addictive feeds” to minors without parental consent. This is being touted as a means of reducing the harmful effects of excessive screen time, including isolation, anxiety and poor mental health. (Related: Texas bills to mandate age verification for visitors of adult websites.)

The legislation defines an “addictive feed” as one that curates media for display to a user based on their data, a feature known to keep users, especially minors, engaged for extensive periods.

Under the new law, sponsored by State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), social media platforms must obtain explicit parental consent before offering addictive feed features to minors. In addition, the law prohibits sending notifications to minors from midnight to 6 a.m. and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on school days, unless parents have approved otherwise.

The law will also provide parents with the ability to set additional controls on the social media use of their children, including restricting access to certain features, limiting interactions with certain types of content and setting the social media accounts of their children private.

Moreover, if the minor requests to use the regular social media settings instead of the default safer options, SB 976 mandates for age verification.

The legislation, set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2027, specifically targets online platforms and services that use algorithms to generate content based on user behavior.

“Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children – isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom said when he signed SB 976. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits. I thank Senator Skinner for advancing this important legislation that puts children’s well-being first.”

Tech groups, First Amendment advocates push back against SB 976

Tech groups and First Amendment advocates alike have strongly criticized SB 976.

“There’s no way to verify the age of minors without verifying the age of all users,” said Todd O’Boyle of the Chamber of Progress, a pro-tech lobbying group. “Whether you ask individuals to manually verify government ID, or you say all right, online services are allowed to use a third-party verifier, you’ve got a huge cybersecurity concern.”

O’Boyle stressed the potential cybersecurity risks in such system. He cited a recent data breach by a third-party background check provider, which exposed sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, of every American. O’Boyle warned that without algorithm tools, platforms would struggle to manage harmful content like cyber bullying.

“However well-intentioned, it’s going to result in a world where the algorithmic tools the platforms use to make the internet safer for young people by downranking and removing content that is harassing or otherwise abusive – if platforms don’t have those algorithmic tools at their disposal, teens are going to be at risk of dogpiling,” O’Boyle said.

Moreover, O’Boyle argued that restricting “addictive feeds” infringes on the editorial control of social media companies and raises First Amendment concerns. He pointed out that “from a First Amendment perspective, the courts have been quite clear you can’t regulate design without running into serious First Amendment issues, because ultimately, this is trying to regulate the core curatorial and editorial functions of social media platforms.”

Chief counsel Robert Corn-Revere of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression echoed this statement: “It basically says that people have to show their papers at the door before they can get access to constitutionally protected speech. It is worth noting that other states attempting similar things have found that efforts to restrict access to this medium are being scrutinized very carefully by the courts. We’re still in the process of going through that same scrutiny in California, so for the legislature to move forward with potential legislation that doubles down on unconstitutional violations strikes me as unwise.”

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