California’s crackdown on addictive social media feeds for kids will proceed as platforms appeal | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

(CN) — TikTok, Meta and YouTube must comply with California’s crackdown on addictive algorithmic feeds for kids while their appeals play out, a federal judge ruled, rejecting the platforms’ bid to keep the law from being enforced while they seek review in the Ninth Circuit.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila denied requests from all three companies to block enforcement of the personalized feed provisions in Senate Bill 976, also known as California’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, while the Ninth Circuit considers their appeal of his earlier ruling against them.

The Barack Obama appointee had already declined to block those provisions on Aug. 5. The companies then asked him for a narrower form of relief: an injunction until the Ninth Circuit weighs in.

But at this point in time, Davila said, the legal landscape has changed. The Ninth Circuit has since weighed in on the broader legal questions surrounding S.B. 976, and Davila pointed to a record built on substantial evidence, including supplemental briefing, expert declarations and more than five hours of oral arguments.

California defines an addictive feed as a feature that selects and serves users a stream of content based on data about them or their device. Under S.B. 976, platforms need verified parental consent before showing minors that kind of feed and must offer settings letting parents limit it.

The platforms argued curating personalized feeds for users is expression protected by the First Amendment and being forced to change how those feeds work amounts to a free-speech injury severe enough to justify blocking the law immediately. Davila rejected that argument again, standing by the finding from his August order.

“A decision to rely on users’ characteristics and history on platforms to reflect back to them their own perceived interests is not an expressive message,” Davila wrote.

He also rejected the platforms’ warnings about the cost and difficulty of compliance with the law. YouTube and Meta argued that redesigning their feeds to meet the law’s requirements would be expensive and could drive away users who prefer the platforms’ current personalized versions.

Davila called those potential injuries speculative and said the compliance costs were more akin to ordinary costs of complying with a new regulation than the kind of harm that justifies emergency relief.

“Speculative injury ‘does not constitute irreparable injury,’” Davila wrote.

Davila also weighed the state’s interest in protecting children. He pointed to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on social media and youth mental health, which the California legislature cited when it passed the law, describing links between problematic and addictive social media use and depression, anxiety and eating disorders among children.

“The personalized feed provisions were adopted by the state to protect the mental and physical health of children,” Davila wrote, calling that “an extremely important justification.”

He said the state’s interest in protecting children from those harms weighs against blocking the law while the appeal proceeds.

The platforms have now exhausted their options. Their remaining path to blocking the law before the Ninth Circuit rules on the merits of their appeal would be to ask the appellate court itself for emergency relief.

Absent that, the personalized feed provisions will remain enforceable while the underlying appeal winds through the Ninth Circuit, a process that will likely take months.

TikTok, Meta, YouTube and the California Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.