California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a ban on “addictive” social media features for anyone under 16 on Thursday, advancing some of the country’s most significant new restrictions on tech platforms.
The legislation will force companies to modify their products and remove features deemed “addictive” for younger teens if they want to keep serving them. It is part of a nationwide trend of states across the political spectrum moving to curb youth use of social media.
The bill — which will almost certainly face legal challenges — passed easily in the Democratic-controlled legislature late last month. While many states, including California, have already passed restrictions on young people’s social media use, advocates cast California’s latest move as especially significant given its size and identity as the home of Silicon Valley.
Newsom’s approach to tech is also under the spotlight as he considers running for president in 2028.
“PROTECT OUR KIDS!” he wrote on X after signing the bill, noting that he also signed new regulations on artificial intelligence.
The passage of the child social media bill comes weeks after Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, agreed to pay as much as $18 billion and make sweeping changes in a settlement that cut short a trial in Oakland, California. In the trial, the attorneys general of California and other states alleged that Meta harmed children with addictive products.
Meta agreed to block Facebook and Instagram from midnight to 6 a.m. for younger users, turn off notifications by default during school hours and place other limits on children’s use.
That settlement followed major legal defeats for Meta earlier in the year amid state and public backlash to the platforms’ hold on young people.
Jim Steyer, the CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that supports child social media restrictions, said in a statement that the “momentum in this fight has shifted, and it shifted here, in the tech companies’ home state.” The rest of the country, he predicted, would follow.
California previously required parental consent for younger social media users, but the new legislation, AB 1709, goes further by outright banning social media companies from providing certain common social media features to those under 16. The bill suggests concerning features include recommendation algorithms, “infinite scroll,” autoplay and more.
South Carolina and Idaho passed similar legislation this spring.
California Assembly member Josh Lowenthal (D), the author of the bill and a longtime tech executive, said in a statement Thursday that the state was “taking a bold first step and laying the groundwork” for more protections for youth.
“Too many of us parents have watched anxiety and depression climb among children who did nothing wrong except grow up in front of a screen engineered to never let them look away,” he said.
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