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SACRAMENTO, California — California may soon hold social media companies liable for harming children who become addicted to their products, and allow parents to sue platforms like Instagram and TikTok for up to $25,000 per violation, under a bill that passed the state Assembly Monday.
In the bill, “addiction” is defined as children under the age of 18 who are both physically, mentally, emotionally, developmentally or financially harmed, and who want to stop or reduce the time they spend on social media but cannot because they are busy. or obsessed with it.
Business groups have warned that if the law passes, social media companies will likely cease operations for children in California rather than face legal risk.
The proposal will only apply to social media companies that have at least $100 million in gross revenue last year and appear to be targeting social media giants like Facebook and other market-dominating social media giants.
It doesn’t apply to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, or companies that only offer email and text messaging services.
“The era of unlimited social experimentation on children is over and we’re going to protect children,” said Councilor Jordan Cunningham, a Republican from San Luis Obispo County and author of the bill.
Monday’s vote is a key – but not final – step for the law. The bill is now headed to the state Senate, where it will go through weeks of hearings and deliberations between lawmakers and advocates. But Monday’s vote keeps the bill alive this year.
The bill offers social media companies two ways to evade liability in the courts. If the bill becomes law, it will enter into force on 1 January. By April 1, companies that remove features deemed addictive to children will not be liable for damages.
In addition, companies that regularly audit their apps to identify and remove features that may make them addictive to children will be exempt from lawsuits.
Despite these provisions, business groups opposed the bill. TechNet, a bipartisan network of tech CEOs and senior executives, wrote in a letter to lawmakers that if the bill becomes law, “social media companies and online web services will have no choice but to cease operations for children under 18 and ensure that strict age-adolescents do not use their sites. verification to be.”
“There is no social media company, let alone any business, that can tolerate this legal risk,” the group wrote.
Lawmakers appeared willing to change the part of the bill that allows parents to sue social media companies, but none offered an elaborate alternative. Instead, supporters urged their colleagues to pass the bill Monday to continue the conversation on the issue in the state Capitol.
Congressman Ken Cooley, a Democrat from Rancho Cordova, said that as a lawyer he opposes bills that normally create more opportunities for lawsuits. But he said lawmakers needed to “change the dynamics that surround us, that surround our children.”
“We have to do something,” he said. “If it doesn’t turn out right, we can change it as we go.”
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