Social media bill passes California Assembly amid Meta lawsuit settlement

Tech giants like Meta, the company that owns social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, could face steep penalties if they are found to have caused harm to children if a bill that passed the legislature Friday is signed into law.

Assembly Bill 2, authored by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, would impose penalties of up to $1 million per child if a court finds a social media platform did not operate with an ordinary level of care and had caused harm to a child. According to a legislative analysis of the bill, the potential financial liability to social media companies under the bill is meant to incentivize those companies to change how they operate their platforms.

“Many of you who are parents understand this, because you see the struggles that your children are having at home,” Lowenthal said on the Assembly floor on Friday. “You know what it’s like to go into your kid’s room at eight or nine at night and they’re by themselves, completely stressed out. You know in your heart, and in your mind, that this is specifically because of design features that were created to addict our children.”

According to research from The National Institutes of Health, the harm posed to children by social media use included depression, poor diet, sleeplessness, addiction, behavioral problems and body image issues.

The Assembly vote on the bill follows just days after a settlement was announced between a coalition of state attorneys general and Meta – a deal that included a $1.5 to $2.5 billion payout to California specifically, according to previous reporting by The Center Square. The settlement came three years after the attorneys general from 33 states filed the lawsuit.

The settlement required Meta to set a default two-hour time limit for users under 18, default access blocks between midnight and 6 a.m., blocks on notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. and during school hours, removing cosmetic/plastic surgery filters, removing public likes on teen posts and enhanced tools for parental supervision, among other terms of the agreement.

The Center Square also reported that prior to the settlement agreement, a trial over the lawsuit got underway in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland.

The bill ultimately got bipartisan support on Friday before it was passed 68 to 0.

“I’m pleased by the recent agreement with Meta,” Assemblymember Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin and co-author of the bill, said on the Assembly floor on Friday. “But that settlement is with one company. It does not fine SnapChat, it does not fine TikTok. It does not fine every other platform that generates more than $100 million a year.”

The bill now goes to the governor’s desk.