California Social Media Addiction Bill Advances in Narrower Form

A California bill seeking to hold social media companies legally responsible for addicting young users to their platforms advanced, clearing an initial hurdle after it was amended to allow lawsuits only by public prosecutors.

The legislation, which has drawn strong opposition from the tech industry, would prohibit companies such as Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc., TikTok Inc. and Google from designing social media to hook users younger than 18 years old and provides for penalties of up to $250,000 for each violation.

Tuesday’s 8-0 vote by a Senate committee in the state capitol in Sacramento is just the first of several needed to get the measure on the desk of California Governor Gavin Newsom. As introduced in February by Nancy Skinner, a Democratic senator whose district is in Berkeley and Oakland, the bill would have let parents sue the companies within four years of alleged harms.

But Skinner agreed during Tuesday’s hearing to a revision that authorizes only the state’s attorney general and local district attorneys to file suits. A similar proposal died in the legislature last year amid fierce resistance from the industry.

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