• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

California lawmakers have passed a bill that would outright prohibit social media platforms from providing "addictive features" -- including algorithmically recommended content and videos that play automatically -- to users under 16.

The proposed law (Assembly Bill 1709) would amend California's existing Protecting Our Kids From Social Media Addiction Act (SB976) -- a 2024 statute that requires platforms to obtain parental consent before algorithmically recommending posts to users under 18 without parental consent.

That 2024 law already faces a challenge by Google, Meta and TikTok, which argue the statute violates their First Amendment right to wield editorial control over their platforms.

The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation is urging California Governor Gavin Newsom to veto the measure, arguing it "cuts young people off from essential information and experiences."

The organization writes that platforms' recommendation systems "allow all users to share their content widely and find new friends, communities, and audiences."

"Instead of recognizing that these features benefit users, A.B. 1709 states that they are inherently addictive," the watchdog writes.

The group also says the bill violates teens' First Amendment rights.

"Forcing young people onto a dysfunctional, stripped-down version of social media heavily burdens their constitutional rights to access information and participate in public discourse," the organization writes.

If enacted, it appears that technology companies are likely to argue that the measure also violates their First Amendment right to display content.

A New Mexico judge who recently ruled that Meta Platforms created public nuisance fined the company $567 million and ordered it to block teens under 18 from spending more than 90 hours per month on Facebook and Instagram combined -- but rejected the attorney general's request to force Meta to revise features like automatically playing videos and algorithmic content recommendations.

The judge said one reason why he turned down that request was because it would likely violate the First Amendment.