(TNND) — California’s Legislature passed a bill Monday to keep kids under 16 off social media platforms with so-called addictive features.
The bill targets features that have become part and parcel of social media apps: algorithms, infinite scroll, autoplay and notifications.
Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat and the lead author of the bill, says the legislation is really more of a gate – an age-gate – rather than an outright ban.
“We’re not banning children from accessing social media,” Lowenthal said Tuesday. “We’re banning social media from accessing children.”
The bill would require social media platforms to delete the accounts of those under 16 if they can’t offer them a version free of the addictive features, as defined. Failure to do so could result in financial civil penalties.
The bill would also create an e-safety commission to advise on the implementation of the law and on online safety in the state moving forward.
“So, what we’re saying is – to the platforms – if you want to continue to have children in your ecosystem, then you can’t have these addictive and harmful design features,” Lowenthal said. “We provide a pathway for the platforms to be good actors. So, it’s really up to them. If they want to make sure that they are leaning into wellness and they’re concerned about their customer base, then they will drop these harmful designs and be able to continue to offer services for kids that are healthy. And if they choose not to, then they do not have the option in the state of California to continue to offer services to children.”
Common Sense Media Founder and CEO Jim Steyer, who leads an organization working to protect children and teens online, applauded passage of the California bill, Assembly Bill 1709.
“Social media companies have engineered their products to hook children, and their own researchers proved it worked,” Steyer said in a statement. “Tech companies ran the tobacco playbook on kids, and this is social media’s Big Tobacco moment. Parents cannot out-parent an algorithm built in a lab to keep kids scrolling. Today the California Senate said enough. AB 1709 forces these companies to design their platforms for children’s safety – or they cannot offer them to children. Assemblymember Lowenthal, and groups like ours, and parents across the country are taking on the most powerful industry in the world and we’re winning.”
Even though the bill faced no opposition in the Legislature, passing unanimously in both the Assembly and state Senate, it does have its opponents.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto the bill, calling it “a massive privacy and free speech nightmare” that threatens to deny teenagers and kids access to “essential information and experiences” on social media platforms.
EFF said the bill “functions as a sweeping ban on social media use” for those under 16.
Lowenthal said the bill addresses a “public health crisis” for young people, which he said supersedes other concerns brought up by groups like EFF.
And he noted that California isn’t alone in trying to tackle this issue.
Florida passed a law a couple of years ago that bars kids under 14 from having social media accounts.
Australia was the first country to implement a nationwide social-media age restriction, but similar laws are being discussed and proposed across the world.
“It’s our responsibility to act, and we’re not alone,” Lowenthal said.
He said the bill erects some “common-sense guardrails” against social media features that are “simply not appropriate for the developing brain.”
He said kids spend too much time on social media to ignore its potential risks to their mental well-being.
Lowenthal said the bill passed with bipartisan support, because California lawmakers were “leading as parents” above all else.
“We’re not allowing this to be hijacked by partisanship,” he said.
And Lowenthal said he’s confident Newsom will sign the bill into law sometime this month.
The establishment of the e-safety commission – under the attorney general’s office – is a key part of the bill, Lowenthal said. That board would draw on pediatric, technology and human-development experts, as well as marginalized communities, to help state lawmakers and prosecutors navigate the dizzying pace of this technology.
And Lowenthal said his just-passed Assembly Bill 2 serves as a companion piece to the social media addictive features legislation.
AB 2 raises the civil damage levels for a child harmed by a platform’s negligence to $1 million or treble damages, whichever is higher, giving families more leverage to sue if platforms fail to follow safety rules.
“One of the things that we’ve seen from the Meta settlement is that the platforms will change their product design completely as long as they don’t have to pay massive fines,” Lowenthal said. “They respond to penalty, to financial penalty.”
Lowenthal called the roughly $17 billion settlement reached by states last week with Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, a “very positive first step.” The deal requires Meta to implement a series of safety features, including limited school-time access for children and stronger parental controls.
But Lowenthal said his bill both goes further in its safety changes and expands them beyond just Meta.
“This isn’t big tobacco,” Lowenthal said. “We’re not trying to put these guys out of business. We simply want them to lean into wellness.”
And, amid a real drumbeat for change, Lowenthal said California’s bill could be a blueprint for other states or even the federal government to follow.
“I wouldn’t say that this is a watershed moment,” Lowenthal said. “I’d say this is an avalanche.”
