California’s teen feed law meets court

Meta, Google and TikTok have each sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta in an effort to stop AB 1709, a state law aimed at social media features lawmakers consider addictive for users under 16.

According to TechCrunch, the law bars platforms from offering autoplay video and personalized feeds to under-16 users. It also requires companies to delete those users’ accounts if those features are not turned off. The potential penalty is steep: up to $50,000 for each affected user under 16.

The case matters because it sits in the now-familiar collision between two arguments that do not neatly cancel each other out. California says children need protection from systems designed to keep them scrolling. The companies say the state is trying to regulate how they present speech, and in doing so is trespassing on constitutional ground.

Meta argues that the law violates the First Amendment by interfering with its editorial choices about how content is organized and shown. TechCrunch reports that Google and TikTok make similar claims, and that Meta also argues federal law under Section 230 preempts the state measure. TikTok, in a statement reported by TechCrunch, called the law an unconstitutional restriction on free expression.

Bonta’s office said it is reviewing the filings and remains committed to defending what it called California’s “commonsense laws” to protect children online.

What is established, from the law as described and from the lawsuits, is that California is not trying to ban children from social media outright. It is targeting specific product features: recommendation systems and autoplay. But critics say the practical burden could reach further. TechCrunch cites the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which argues that enforcing age-based rules like these can push platforms toward broader age-verification checks, meaning more data collection for everyone, not less.

That is one of the central tensions in youth-tech policy: a law can be written in the language of safety and still demand more surveillance from the same companies critics already distrust. The other tension is about agency. Google says it already disables autoplay for minors on YouTube by default and offers parental controls, framing the dispute as one over who decides — the state, the platform or the family.

Courts will sort out the constitutional arguments. For teenagers, the immediate question underneath the legal filings is plainer: whether a state can force the internet they use to become less personalized, less sticky and, depending on your view, either safer or less navigable.