California lawmakers just passed a bill that could hit Big Tech with $1 million fines per child if social media platforms are found to have harmed kids — and it’s not just Meta in the crosshairs.
Assembly Bill 2, authored by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, passed the California Assembly 68-0 on Friday. The bill would impose penalties of up to $1 million per child if a court finds a social media platform failed to operate with an ordinary level of care and caused harm to a child. This represents one of the most aggressive legislative attempts by any state to hold social media companies financially accountable for their impact on minors, building on years of growing concern among parents, educators, and public health officials about the mental health crisis affecting young users.
The vote came just days after Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — agreed to a massive settlement with 33 state attorneys general. California is set to receive between $1.5 and $2.5 billion from the deal, which followed a three-year lawsuit. That legal action accused Meta of knowingly using features designed to keep young users engaged for extended periods, prioritizing profit over the wellbeing of children and teenagers. The timing of the legislative vote suggests lawmakers view the settlement as validation of their concerns rather than a resolution of the underlying problem.
“You know what it’s like to go into your kid’s room at eight or nine at night and they’re by themselves, completely stressed out. You know in your heart, and in your mind, that this is specifically because of design features that were created to addict our children.”
That was Lowenthal on the Assembly floor Friday, making the case that social media platforms are engineering addiction in children. His remarks reflected a growing body of evidence that platform design choices — including infinite scroll, autoplay videos, variable reward mechanisms similar to slot machines, and carefully calibrated notification systems — are intentionally crafted to maximize user engagement and screen time, often at the expense of mental and physical health.
Research from the National Institutes of Health backs up the concern. Studies show social media use in children is linked to depression, poor diet, sleeplessness, addiction, behavioral problems, and body image issues. The research has become increasingly difficult for tech companies to dismiss, with internal documents from multiple platforms revealing that their own researchers warned executives about these harms years before the public became widely aware of the issue. This disconnect between internal knowledge and public messaging has fueled much of the legislative momentum behind bills like AB 2.
The Meta settlement requires the company to impose a default two-hour daily time limit for users under 18, block access between midnight and 6 a.m., silence notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. and during school hours, remove cosmetic surgery filters, hide public likes on teen posts, and provide enhanced parental supervision tools. These measures represent some of the most comprehensive restrictions ever imposed on a major social media platform’s operations with minors, though critics argue they still rely heavily on self-enforcement by the same company that created the problematic features in the first place.
But the new California bill goes further — and doesn’t stop with Meta. Unlike the settlement, which applies only to one company and stemmed from specific allegations in a particular lawsuit, the legislation would establish an ongoing legal framework that applies equally to all qualifying platforms.
Assemblymember Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, co-authored the bill and explained why it’s needed.
“I’m pleased by the recent agreement with Meta. But that settlement is with one company. It does not fine SnapChat, it does not fine TikTok. It does not fine every other platform that generates more than $100 million a year.”
The bipartisan support signals rare unity in California on an issue that crosses party lines. According to a legislative analysis of the bill, the potential financial liability is designed to incentivize social media companies to fundamentally change how they operate their platforms. The $100 million revenue threshold ensures the law targets major platforms with the resources to implement comprehensive safety measures while avoiding sweeping in smaller services and startups that may not pose the same scale of risk. The unanimous vote in the Assembly suggests legislators view this as a public health imperative rather than a partisan political issue.
The bill now heads to the governor’s desk, where it will face scrutiny from both supporters who want even stronger protections and tech industry groups who argue it could stifle innovation or prove difficult to enforce across jurisdictions.
If signed into law, platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and X could face the same million-dollar-per-child penalties that Meta just settled to avoid in court. The financial exposure could run into the billions if courts find widespread harm. Given California’s status as both the nation’s most populous state and home to most major tech companies, the law could effectively set a national standard that influences how platforms operate everywhere, not just within state borders. Other states are already watching closely to see whether California’s approach could serve as a model for their own regulatory efforts.
