Social media platforms may be held financially liable for harm caused to California’s minors thanks to a bill authored by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach.
AB 3172 would impose financial liabilities on large social media companies if a court finds that they knowingly offered products or design features that resulted in harm to minors.
The bill secured a major victory on Monday by clearing the state Assembly with across the aisle support. It now heads to the state Senate for a vote.
The law is opposed by several tech industry groups — including Chamber of Progress, TechNet, and NetChoice. They argue that it will result in a flurry of litigation and cause social media companies to censor more content, thereby infringing on children’s First Amendment right to access information online.
Lowenthal appealed to his colleagues on Monday by arguing that the bill is necessary to hold social media companies accountable for their role in the rise of depression, self-harm, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts among children.
Rates of anxiety and depression among adolescents rose by more than 50% from 2010 to 2019, according to an analysis of studies by NYU professor Jonathan Haidt. Meanwhile, suicide rates for kids between the ages of 10 and 14 tripled between 2007 and 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is not a new issue, but rather it’s getting louder and louder by the day,” said Lowenthal on Monday.
If passed, the bill would apply to platforms with more than $100 million in annual profits and would allow courts to impose financial damages ranging from a set $5,000 per violation, to $1 million per child.
The bill received nine votes of support from Republican assemblymembers signaling that efforts to shield children from the dangers of social media are a rare bipartisan priority in Sacramento.
Fred Whittaker, chairman of the Republican Party in Orange County, is a fierce supporter of the bill and spoke in favor of it at an Assembly Standing Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection meeting last month.
“Whether it’s sex trafficking, addiction, tips on suicide, anorexia or the sale of fentanyl, social media is facilitating and causing a degree of child harm that we have never seen,” Whittaker said. “That harm needs to be stopped.”
Based on his decades as an attorney, Whittaker said that adding a financial penalty for failing to protect children will be more effective than imposing new regulations.
“Large companies love regulation. They have a phalanx of lawyers and compliance officers who then lobby their regulators and then become their own experts for their own regulators,” he said.
“I guarantee you with this legislation passing, the engineers at these social media companies will figure out how to change the algorithms to make things less addictive, make bad things less attractive and still have very profitable companies,” Whittaker added.
That sentiment was echoed by Lowenthal during the April committee meeting, who said that a financial penalty is needed to incentivize change.
“While there are some varying degrees of guardrails built into some of these platforms, studies show that there is often much more that can and should be done — and too often our questions and concerns to the corporations have gone unanswered,” he said. “I, like many parents, have skin in the game here.”
The bill received pushback from technology industry groups during both the committee meeting and Monday’s hearing before the state Assembly. The groups argue that it’s impossible to identify and remove every piece of harmful content on their platforms because there is no consensus on what is considered harmful.
“This bill would compel platforms to arbitrarily decide what content is appropriate for young users, decisions that should be made by parents or guardians,” said Jessica Miers, senior counsel for Chamber of Progress during the April committee meeting. “This infringes on First Amendment rights of platforms and users and opens the door to endless litigation.”
Despite these concerns, the bill still received the votes needed to clear the Assembly floor.
Also on Monday, the state Senate passed state Sen. Nancy Skinner’s, D-Oakland, bill to protect youth from the dangers associated with social media addiction. SB 976 would prevent platforms from sending an addictive feed to a child, or notifications overnight, or during school hours, without parental permission. The bill now proceeds to the state Assembly.
“Countless studies show that once a young person has a social media addiction, they experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem,” Skinner wrote in a bill analysis. “We’ve waited long enough for social media companies to act. SB 976 is needed now to establish sensible guardrails so parents can protect their kids from these preventable harms.”