Despite losses, Bonta renews crackdown on kids' social media use

Attorney General Rob Bonta and his legislative allies are charging forward with a new effort to prevent social media companies from targeting kids online — despite a recent court ruling declaring a similar California law illegal.

“We expect these bills to be challenged, based on the conduct and practice of NetChoice and others in the past,” Bonta said during a Monday news conference. “We expect challenges based on the First Amendment or Section 230. That’s part of the common playbook used by the tech industry.”

The new bills are SB 976, the Protecting Youth from Social Media Addiction Act, and AB 1949, the California Children’s Data Privacy Act. Neither bill was in print on Monday morning. But according to the office of Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, her SB 976 would require social media platforms to adjust default settings to limit children’s accounts to a one-hour daily time limit and make their accounts private, meaning that only people within their network of family and friends could view them.

It would also prohibit social media companies from sending notifications to kids during school hours and from midnight to 6 a.m. Skinner said SB 976 would be the “first such law in the nation,” though lawmakers in New York have introduced a similar bill.

AB 1949 by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, would prohibit technology companies from collecting, sharing, and selling a minor’s data without parental consent — backed up by civil penalties up to $5,000 per violation. Bonta said his office is sponsoring both measures.

Wicks also wrote AB 2273. This 2022 law, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, requires technology companies to default to higher data security settings when they offer accounts to children. It would also require companies to share data on their compliance with the law with the California attorney general’s office and create a California Children’s Data Protection Working Group.

On Monday, Wicks noted her earlier bill passed with nearly unanimous bipartisan support. “It passed 76-0 on the floor of the Assembly,” Wicks said. “That doesn’t happen very often in politics today.”

“The default setting is a very powerful tool to ensure safety,” she added.

The Legislature lists AB 2273 as having passed 75-0 in the Assembly and 33-0 in the Senate — counts that show that policing how social media companies interact with children is a rare area of bipartisan consensus in Sacramento. Wicks said she was in touch with executives at several technology companies who sounded open to the provision in AB 2273 while it was pending.

But the trade group NetChoice LLC quickly sued to block the law, which was scheduled to go into effect on July 1 this year. In September, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of San Jose enjoined the law, ruling AB 2273 violated the First Amendment.

Bonta appealed. In a brief filed last month, Deputy Attorney General Elizabeth K. Watson argued the law doesn’t single out a particular business or limit what they say. NetChoice, LLC v. Bonta, 23-2969 (9th Circ., filed Oct. 23, 2023).

“These are the same harmful ideas recycled from California’s AADC, which was noted in our case against AG Bonta as unconstitutional,” said NetChoice Vice President and General Counsel Carl Szabo in an email when asked about the two new bills. “Rather than violate the Constitution, annihilate privacy, and force the government control of families, California policymakers need to engage with alternative, constitutional proposals, like the NetChoice SHIELD effort, to educate and empower parents and kids and imprison predators.”

In a statement shared by Senior Communications Manager Krista Chavez, Netchoice said that similar to AB 2273, the new bills “would require even more dangerous data collection” in order to confirm people’s ages because “age verification for everyone under 18 means age verification for everyone over 18.”

Bonta also appeared to be preparing for further legal battles.

“We think that these approaches are fully with Section 230, with the First Amendment, with the dormant commerce clause,” Bonta said near the end of the news conference. “Whatever the challenges may be, these are responsible, legally constitutional complaint approaches. When it comes to the Age Appropriate Design Code, we think that the district court got it wrong.”

In her Oakland courtroom on Friday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she would reject a motion brought by attorneys for social media companies. Attorneys representing Meta and other companies are seeking a request to dismiss dozens of cases brought on behalf of minors who say they were addicted to social media. The judge said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act did not protect Meta and other companies from this type of claim. Section 230 states that internet companies are not liable for materials third parties post on their platforms. In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, 4:22-md-03047-YGR (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 6, 2022).