California Gov. Gavin Newsom Signs Bill to Limit Kids’ Social Media Use

On September 21, California Governor Gavin Newsom enacted new legislation aimed at controlling social media usage among minors. The law, known as the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, prohibits online platforms from knowingly serving content that could be deemed addictive to users under the age of 18 without parental consent.

The law defines an “addictive feed” as any internet service or application that curates or ranks content based on user data, unless specific conditions are satisfied. This move is intended to limit the exposure of minors to content that may be harmful or misleading.

Additionally, the bill restricts social media platforms, including popular sites like Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, from sending notifications to minors during set hours—namely, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from midnight to 5 a.m. from September through May—unless they have parental permission.

Governor Newsom addressed the issue, acknowledging the detrimental effects that social media addiction can have on children. He stated, “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. With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.”

The legislation was championed by State Senator Nancy Skinner from Berkeley. Newsom’s wife expressed her pride in California’s initiative to hold tech companies accountable for the potential harm their products may cause to children.

A unique requirement of this legislation is that it mandates social media companies to provide minors with access to chronological feeds instead of the algorithm-driven feeds commonly used. This adjustment is aimed at allowing younger users to engage with content that they actively choose, rather than what corporate algorithms prioritize for monetary gain.

James P. Steyer, the CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization advocating for kids and families, praised this aspect of the law. He noted, “That means that kids will see more content that they choose to see—from their friends or others that they signed up to see—rather than what Meta and other large companies want kids to see because they make so much money off of keeping them hooked online. This bill is good for kids’ mental and physical health.”

An earlier piece of legislation enacted in 2022 already prohibits businesses from utilizing any personal information of children in a manner that is known to be damaging to their physical or mental well-being. California is also standing firm in defending the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, which is facing legal challenges asserting its provisions are too ambiguous and may infringe upon First Amendment rights.

Critics of the new law have expressed concern that the language surrounding “materially detrimental” is too vague, arguing that it could suppress platforms’ rights to exercise editorial discretion. Amy Bos, the director of state and federal affairs for NetChoice, articulated these concerns in a letter to Governor Newsom, asserting that the law would limit how websites curate content for their users, thereby interfering with their editorial capabilities.

The new legislation is set to come into effect on January 1, 2027. Until then, the Attorney General will have the authority to formulate regulations regarding penalties for social media companies and the specifics surrounding parental consent and age verification.

Other states have begun implementing their own restrictions on social media usage among children. For instance, in March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill prohibiting children under 14 from creating their own social media accounts, while allowing parents to decide on account access for children aged 14 and 15.

Similarly, in June, New York Governor Kathy Hochul enacted two bills limiting how digital platforms can use algorithms and children’s data. Under these new directives, social media platforms must provide default chronological ordering for content displayed to users under 18 and are barred from collecting or sharing personal information without parental consent.

Currently, federal privacy protections apply to children under 13. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is set to review a case next term concerning age verification requirements for sexually explicit websites.

In a related move, Instagram recently announced new settings aimed at teen users, which will automatically make accounts private for millions of younger users and restrict content visibility for users under 18. The platform will also implement reminders for users who spend more than an hour on the app daily and will default to “sleep mode” from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.