Google, Meta and TikTok sued California to block enforcement of a new state law intended to limit the risk of addicting children under 16 to social media platforms. The law, known as Assembly Bill 1709, prohibits such platforms from offering underage children “psychologically exploitative features” that could lead to compulsive use, such as providing personal recommendations and sending videos through autoplay features. It also requires the deletion of children’s accounts with those features.
In separate lawsuits on Wednesday, Google, Meta and TikTok said the law wrongly compels them to honor California’s preferred means of presenting content to children and substitutes the state’s judgment for that of parents. They said the law violates the US constitution’s first amendment free speech protections, as well as Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which broadly shields online platforms from liability over user content. The office of Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, who enforces the state’s laws and is the only defendant, said on Thursday it is reviewing the lawsuits.
Google owns YouTube and is a unit of Alphabet, while Meta owns Facebook and Instagram. TikTok is a unit of China’s ByteDance. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the law on 10 September, saying children’s safety should be central to any discussion about technology, and California “will not stand by while unregulated technology puts our children at risk”.
The law takes effect on 1 January 2027, unless a judge voids it or puts it on hold. TikTok, meanwhile, said protected speech “cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable”. Other critics also accused California of overreaching.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights advocacy group, called the law “a massive privacy and free speech nightmare”. Many US states regulate children’s access to social media. Countries around the world have similar restrictions, including a ban in Australia on social media for children under 16.
In August, Meta agreed to pay up to $18bn and limit teenagers’ use of Facebook and Instagram under agreements with nearly all US states, which accused it of violating privacy and consumer protection laws. In the aftermath of whistleblower revelations that showed Meta was aware of the way its platforms harmed teens, Meta launched a suite of teen safety tools aimed at giving parents more oversight. The company has previously tapped influencers to promote these features around the world as an alternative to social media bans or limitations similar to Australia’s.
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