Google, Meta and TikTok sue California to block children's social media law

Google, Meta and TikTok have filed separate lawsuits to block California from enforcing a new state law intended to limit the risk of addicting children under 16 to social media platforms.

The law, Assembly Bill 1709, prohibits platforms from offering underage children "psychologically exploitative features" that could lead to compulsive use, including personal recommendations and autoplay videos. It also requires the deletion of children's accounts that use those features.

In lawsuits filed on Wednesday, the three companies said the law wrongly compels them to honour California's preferred way of presenting content to children and substitutes the state's judgment for that of parents. They argued it 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.

State says it will defend the law

The office of Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, who enforces the state's laws and is the only defendant in the cases, said on Thursday it was reviewing the lawsuits. "Our office is committed to defending California's commonsense laws to protect kids online," it added.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the measure on 10 September, saying children's safety should be central to any discussion about technology and that 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.

Google owns YouTube and is a unit of Alphabet; Meta owns Facebook and Instagram; TikTok is a unit of China's ByteDance.

"Parents are best positioned to make the right decisions for their families," Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said. "Overly broad laws like this actually break the systems we've built to help kids find high-quality, age-appropriate videos."

Meta said in its lawsuit that California cannot override its editorial judgments about how to curate and display billions of posts, while leaving children free to spend unlimited time on other online platforms offering similar services. TikTok said protected speech "cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable".

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights advocacy group, called the law "a massive privacy and free speech nightmare".

Google filed its lawsuit in federal court in San Jose, Meta in San Francisco and TikTok in Los Angeles.

Wider push to regulate children's social media use

Many US states regulate children's access to social media, and countries including Australia have imposed a ban 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.

The companies and Snapchat parent Snap also face thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts, municipalities and other government entities claiming they sought to addict children and caused a mental health crisis resulting in harms such as anxiety, depression and suicide.

Separately, Google has faced scrutiny over its AI tools on school devices. On Thursday, parents in California filed a lawsuit against the company alleging their teenage daughter made plans to end her life after multiple interactions with AI mode on Google Search, which she accessed through a school-issued Google Chromebook.

Source: The Guardian.