California enacts new curbs on social media for children

• California Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws banning children under 16 from addictive social media features and AI chatbot toys, aiming to protect youth wellbeing.
• The legislation, called "Adam's Law," includes stricter sanctions on AI-generated child sexual abuse content and mandates parental controls on chatbots.
• California joins other states in curbing harmful tech influences on minors amid legal pressures on Big Tech, with Meta agreeing to limit teen usage on Facebook and Instagram.

LOS ANGELES – California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on Sept 10 new tech company restrictions barring children under 16 from exposure to behaviourally addictive features on social media platforms and banning toys containing AI companion chatbots.

The two measures were among 13 Bills Newsom enacted as a package designed to safeguard young people from technology seen as putting them at risk, including greater online privacy protection for minors.

Another measure expanded the scope of criminal sanctions against child sexual abuse material to include any digitally altered or AI-generated content that depicts a person under the age of 18 engaged in sexual conduct.

Still another bans for the next four years the manufacture and sale of toys that incorporate a companion chatbot. A related measure requires parental controls on chatbot programs, along with other safety and risk assessments.

Newsom touted those regulations as the most far-reaching of their kind in the nation. The Bill was dubbed “Adam's Law”, in memory of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old boy who took his own life in April 2025 after he acted, according to his parents, on suicidal thoughts validated in months of discussion with OpenAI’s ChatGPT program.

OpenAI has said it intends to improve ChatGPT safeguards, which the company has acknowledged became “less reliable” as user interactions grow more prolonged.

“We want our children - and every California kid - to grow up in a world where technology supports their wellbeing, rather than exploits their vulnerabilities,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement announcing the measures.

California, home of such leading internet companies as Google, Meta Platforms and Snap, joins a growing list of US states cracking down on business strategies seen as deliberately designed to hook teenagers on social media, despite evidence that extensive use is harmful to their mental health.

While gaining broad bipartisan support, some critics objected to the Bill as an unnecessary restriction on young people’s internet access, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the Bill “a massive privacy and free speech nightmare”.

Utah became the first to adopt laws regulating children’s access to social media, followed by others, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Texas, Florida and New York, though approaches have varied.

‘Psychologically exploitative’ features targeted

Countries around the world have also moved to curb children’s access to harmful internet content, including a ban in Australia on social media for children under 16.

California's version, known as Assembly Bill 1709, prohibits children under age 16 from exposure to a number of “psychologically exploitative features intended to maximise engagement that foreseeably lead to compulsive use”.

Those include infinite-scroll feeds, algorithmic autoplay and other features to be defined in future regulations.

Its enactment comes at a time when Big Tech, in the face of mounting legal challenges, has shown greater willingness to accept new restrictions.

Meta agreed three weeks ago to pay as much as US$18 billion (S$22.82 billion) over the next decade and strictly limit how teenagers use its Facebook and Instagram platforms under a deal with nearly all US states to resolve civil claims that the company designed its social media platforms to addict children. REUTERS