California’s Social Media Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (SB 976), which requires teens to obtain parental consent before receiving recommended content on social media platforms, is facing a legal challenge for violating teens’ First Amendment rights, according to a recent brief filed by the EFF, alongside other digital rights groups.
- SB 976 restricts teens from receiving recommended social media speech without parental approval.
- EFF and allies argue the law infringes on the First Amendment rights of young users.
- Alternative laws could better protect minors without violating free speech protections.
What happened
California’s SB 976 mandates that social media platforms require parental consent for teens to view recommended content generated by other users. This legislation aims to shield minors from engaging with potentially harmful or addictive recommendation algorithms that select what appears on their feeds.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, along with the Center for Democracy & Technology and Wikimedia Foundation, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the challenge to this law in the case Meta v. Bonta. The brief argues that SB 976 not only violates social media companies’ First Amendment rights but also infringes on the constitutional free speech rights of teen users themselves.
Why it matters
Recommendation algorithms serve a dual purpose on social media: helping users discover important speech and content from others, and amplifying their own voices to a wider audience. By restricting teens' ability to access recommended speech, SB 976 significantly impairs their capacity to engage in political discussion, share religious beliefs, participate in cultural exchanges, and consume diverse information sources.
The EFF’s brief highlights that the sheer volume of online content makes manual searching ineffective, particularly for young users who may not know what to seek or how to find it. Therefore, cutting off these recommendation tools hampers teens’ opportunities to fully express themselves and participate in social discourse, amounting to a heavy constitutional burden.
What to watch next
The court’s ruling in Meta v. Bonta will be pivotal in determining whether SB 976 remains enforceable. A decision striking down the law on First Amendment grounds could set important precedent for the regulation of social media content curation and youth access rights in the United States.
Looking forward, digital rights advocates suggest alternative legislative approaches that protect minors from privacy-invasive and harmful data collection practices without curtailing their free speech rights. For example, laws requiring platforms to limit invasive tracking or wholesale surveillance could safeguard all users—particularly teens—while preserving constitutional protections.