California social media addiction bill removes text allowing parents to sue
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A first-of-its-kind proposal in the California Legislature to hold social media companies accountable for harming children who have become addicted to their products would no longer allow parents to sue popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
The revised proposal would still make social media companies liable for damages of up to $250,000 per violation for using features they know can make children addicted. But that would only leave prosecutors, not parents, to sue social media companies. The legislation was changed last month, CalMatters reported Thursday.
The bill’s author, Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, said he made the change to ensure the bill had enough votes to pass the state Senate, where he said a number of lawmakers were “worried about creating new types of prosecutions.”
“They’re afraid it’s opening the floodgates to frivolous claims,” Cunningham said. “They seem more comfortable letting it be handled by prosecutors, who already end up taking the lead on this consumer protection type of thing.”
Although the revised bill may win more votes in the state Legislature, it has failed to convince social media companies, many of which – such as Facebook’s parent company, Meta META,
Twitter TWTR,
and YouTube parent Alphabet GOOGL,
GOOG,
— are based in California and remain opposed. TechNet, a group of CEOs and senior tech executives, says it’s nearly impossible to separate social media content — words, photos, and videos uploaded by people — from the features companies use to deliver that content, including things like push notifications, newsfeed, and the ability to scroll endlessly.
“I think this violates our First Amendment rights and the editorial discretion we have,” said Dylan Hoffman, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest. “It makes no sense to identify functionality when it’s the underlying content that may be causing the problem.”
Hoffman said social media companies have introduced many new features to solve what he called “a really difficult and complex problem” of children’s use of social media. Many platforms allow parents to set time limits for their children or disable certain features.
“There’s a lot of innovation in this space to ensure that parents and children are able to take better control of their social media use,” Hoffman said.
The bill would exempt social media companies from these lawsuits if they conduct quarterly feature audits and remove any harmful products within 30 days of learning they are addicting children.
Hoffman says that would offer companies little protection because proponents claim almost anything about a social media app or website is addictive, including the News Feed and algorithms suggesting content.
He said companies would have to take down their entire websites within 30 days to avoid liability, which Hoffman said would be “impossible”.
Cunningham scoffs at that argument, saying the legislation would encourage social media companies to monitor themselves to avoid penalties. He said most other products are covered by consumer protection laws that allow people to sue companies for selling products they know are unsafe.
“We just haven’t extended it to social media platforms yet because they’re new and we didn’t really know they were driving this social experiment on our kids’ brains,” Cunningham said. “They have no incentive to change.”
The bill is one of several proposals introduced in the Legislative Assembly this year targeting social media companies.
A bill by Democratic Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel would require social media companies to publicly disclose their policies for removing problematic content and explain in detail how and when they removed it.
A bill by Sen. Tom Umberg would let Californians targeted in a violent social media post seek a court order to have the post removed.
And a bill by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks would require companies to meet certain standards when marketing online to children.