State bill aims to hold social media sites accountable
California is about to take a bold stand holding Facebook (Meta), Instagram, TikTok, Snap and other major social media platforms accountable for their actions if a groundbreaking bill targeting online addiction passes its final hurdles.
The bill, AB 2408, cleared the Assembly in May, and an amended version unanimously passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
It will authorize the state attorney general, district attorneys throughout California and city attorneys of the four largest cities — Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco — to sue any major social media company that knowingly implements features designed to addict minors to their platform’s use.
Before landing on the governor’s desk, the bill still must pass the Senate Appropriations Committee and the full Senate. But the pending legislation has generated popular and parental support and buzz in national media, including The Wall Street Journal, and among tech publications and industry analysts.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law and by Common Sense Media. It’s an effort to hold major social media platforms accountable for deliberately deploying algorithms and features known to trigger addiction among young, more susceptible audiences.
“There is broad recognition now that there is a problem that has to be fixed urgently,” says Ed Howard, senior counsel to the Children’s Advocacy Institute here. “Multibillion-dollar corporations are making more money by controlling the souls and minds of our nation’s children. Nobody says social media ought to be able to make addicts of our children.”
The Assembly bill, coauthored by Republican Jordan Cunningham and Democrat Buffy Wicks, recites numerous research indications of excessive and compulsive use of social media that harms minors:
• Five to 6 percent of 14-year-olds surveyed admitted to problematic use.
• Girls disclosing excessive social media use are two to three times more likely to report being depressed than girls who are less frequent users.
• Girls are far more susceptible to social media addiction than boys.
• Because their brains are still developing, addiction in adolescents hampers development of judgment, attention and memory.
• Higher daily rates of checking social media are linked to reduction in the brain tissue that controls memory, emotions, speech, decision-making and selfcontrol, and leads to higher impulsivity.
• Several studies document links between time spent on social media and rising rates of teen suicide and depression.
The legislation cites confidential internal research revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen acknowledging that Facebook (now called Meta) was aware that children using its Instagram platform were subject to severe mental health harm.
Meta’s internal research also revealed that 13 percent of British users and 6 percent of American users traced their desire to kill themselves to use of Instagram. (Meta owns Instagram.)
Negative body image issues, eating disorders, social pressure, depression, anxiety, mental illness, emotional distress and suicide all have been linked to the intense social media use.
San Diego State University psychology Professor Jean Twenge earlier published a study showing that teens whose eyes are glued to their smartphones are markedly less happy. She also found major increases in adolescent mental health crises in recent years corresponded to Instagram’s rising popularity.
The original version of the bill authorized parents to sue social media companies regarding their kids’ behavioral addiction and resulting mental health issues.
Major media companies lobbied heavily against it and, in Senate amendments, the authority to prosecute shifted from private attorneys to government attorneys.
The bill also applies only to media giants with more than $100 million in gross annual revenue. Violators are given an opportunity to correct the practice to avoid a penalty of $25,000 per violation and up to $250,000 for a violation determined to be knowing and willful.
Representatives of tech companies oppose the bill. A trade industry spokesman, Dylan Hoffman, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest, protested
during the Senate hearing that the bill would infringe on free speech and have a chilling effect on the industry.
“The recent amendments do not address our opposition or fundamental concern with AB 2408,” Hoffman told me in an interview Thursday. He said the bill would punish a company simply for having a platform that kids can access, while it would do little to improve safety.
“It imposes new liability that would most likely lead companies to severely restrict access to kids under 18,” he warned.
The California Chamber of Commerce also opposes the bill.
Other states are known to be watching California with an eye to possibly adopting similar measures.
The crux of the bill is that it invokes the unfair competition law — using the theory that a media platform that employs neuroscientists and artificial intelligence research to create addictive behavior should be unable to get a market
advantage over a law-abiding firm.
Howard, of the Children’s Advocacy Institute, stresses that it does not apply to such entities as Netflix, Disney+, Marvel studios or third-party content providers. Email, Internet search and Internet streaming services and video games also are exempt.
Rather, it targets companies that create tools and inventions, such as the bottomless scroll, auto play and intermittent rewards (“like” and vote buttons, for instance) specifically to keep kids online to generate more advertising dollars.
Instagram and other platforms developed a revenue model that depends not on paid subscriptions but on user engagement that fuels advertising revenue.
“They’re reeling in children and addicting them to the point where they can’t get off the platform when they realize it’s affecting them negatively,” says Jessica Heldman, associate professor at USD School of
Law.
The legislation took shape last fall after the Facebook whistleblower’s testimony to Congress along with children’s mental health consistently getting worse over the past decade.
“Our goal was to ensure the legislation focused on companies that have the revenue to employ engineers and psychologists to find ways to make their platform more engaging and ultimately more addictive to children,” Heldman explains. “We want them to look at that and fix it. This is a motivator to work with us. That’s the goal.”
She is hopeful for support from San Diego state Sen. Toni Atkins, Senate president pro tempore, and from the governor.
“We appreciate all of the hard work that has gone into this bill, and we look forward to reviewing the bill further,” Atkins said Friday through press secretary Cameron Sutherland, who noted that the Senate is in recess this month.