California bill requiring age checks for social media has strong support from Newsom

California looks set to impose legal age restrictions for social media, in keeping with the global trend to regulate the large platforms that have shown to be harmful to young teens.

A report from CBS8 says bipartisan legislation introduced last week in the form of Assembly Bill 1709 has the “strong support” of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has “signaled he would sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk.”

The bill in its current state, introduced by Long Beach Democrat Josh Lowenthal, endorses a “minimum age requirement to open or maintain a social media account,” but does not include a specific threshold. However, the expectation is that California will hew closely to the precedent set by Australia’s “social media delay,” which prohibits a selection of very large platforms from allowing kids under 16 to create accounts.

The law would necessitate the implementation of age assurance measures in the form of biometric age estimation or age verification tools. Given this, lawmakers can expect robust opposition from NetChoice, the legal lobby association that represents many of the largest social media companies, including Meta, Pinterest, Snap and X.

Remarks from Newsom refer to “a generation that has never been more anxious, less free, more stressed.”

NetChoice to fight against health labels, app store age checks

“I think it’s long overdue that we’re having the debate that we’re having now in the Legislature and I’m very grateful the Legislature is taking this very seriously,” he says. “We have to address this issue.”

AB 1709 must still pass through committees in the Assembly and State Senate before being voted on. But the governor’s support could see it fast-tracked – unless NetChoice stops it.

Sure enough, Politico reports that the group has already “indicated it may challenge two California social media laws passed last year: one requiring platforms to show minors health warning labels, and another requiring device-makers like Apple and Google to collect user ages.”

A potential challenge to the latter, which would help accomplish the shift of age checks to the app store or device level, calls into question how sincere Meta is being in its push to put age assurance on app stores; NetChoice, at any rate, clearly prefers no age checks at all.

Article Topics

age verification  |  app store age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  California  |  legislation  |  Netchoice  |  social media