Social media giants Meta and TikTok have got another major legal fight on their hands as they join Google in seeking to block the enforcement of a new law in California that would force them to stop using “psychologically exploitative features” on users under age 16.
California’s Assembly Bill 1709, which was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 10, says that online platforms operating in the state are required to restrict the usage of certain addictive features for users under age 16.
Per the text of the law, those addictive elements include “addictive feeds, endless scrolls, autoplay, and their functional equivalents, including any feature that learns from user information or behavior in order to prolong engagement with a particular internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application.”
Under this new law, social platforms are essentially required to either remove these elements from the accounts of underage users, or ban users under age 16 from using their platforms. The law is currently scheduled to come into effect on Jan. 1.
But as reported by Reuters, platforms are pushing back on these restrictions and arguing that they violate the First Amendment, as well as Section 230 protections for online providers.
As per Reuters: “In separate lawsuits on Wednesday, Google, Meta and TikTok said the law wrongly compels them to honor the state’s preferred means of presenting content to children, and substitutes the state’s judgment for that of parents.”
The argument these platforms are making is that California legislators are overstepping regulatory boundaries in order to impose restrictive operating conditions that infringe on users’ rights.
It’s the latest in a series of significant legal challenges relating to potential teen harm facing social media platforms.
In March, a jury in California found that apps including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube can have significant mental health impacts, particularly on younger users, due to intentionally designed, addictive systems. The jury ruled that both Meta and YouTube parent company Alphabet ignored these risks in order to maximize business opportunities.
Then in August, as part of a separate case, Meta agreed to pay more than $18 billion to halt a potentially damaging lawsuit over social media harms. As part of that settlement, Meta also agreed to implement new restrictions on teen social media use.
These cases have led to the implementation of California’s new law, which the platforms are now seeking to push back on in order to limit the impact of these findings.
Social platforms are also facing various new laws that would ban teens from using their apps entirely in many regions.
