The new measures extend that design-focused approach from social feeds to minors’ chatbot use, while related signed legislation on independent AI safety evaluations puts AI providers within the same California accountability push.
First-order effects
Social-media companies serving California must change or disable the restricted engagement features for users under 16 rather than offer one uniform product experience.
Chatbot providers face new limits on how minors can interact with companion-style systems, making youth safeguards a product requirement rather than a voluntary setting.
Second-order effects
Compliance work shifts toward age-based access controls and differentiated under-16 interfaces, increasing the importance of systems that can apply protections by user age.
Social platforms and AI chatbot providers face a more closely aligned California policy framework, reducing their ability to treat feed design and conversational AI as separate child-safety categories.
Third-order effects
If California continues to regulate both engagement mechanics and conversational systems, youth-safety governance will increasingly target product design choices—not only content moderation or data handling.
The combination of social-feature limits, chatbot protections, and AI-evaluation rules points toward a compliance model in which platforms must document and constrain how products influence younger users.
The trend: California is broadening youth-tech regulation from data and social-feed safeguards toward age-specific controls over persuasive interfaces and AI companions.
So pleased to see how much @GavinNewsom gets this issue. On AB 1709, a restriction on addictive social media features and feeds for under-16-year-olds, he says:
We're grateful for @CAgovernor's leadership in signing nation-leading design feature legislation. AB 1709 restricts addictive features and feeds for under-16-year-olds while still preserving access. Our statement on today's bill signing.
I just signed legislation banning addictive social media features like infinite scroll for users under 16 and regulating chatbot companion usage by minors. California will not stand by while unregulated technology puts our children at risk.
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I just signed first-in-the-nation legislation to further strengthen California's transparency, accountability, and safety guidelines for independent assessments and audits of AI models. The Trump Administration needs to get off the sidelines and regulate AI's development and depl…
Today, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that prohibits social media platforms from providing addictive features to users under 16, the first law of its kind in the nation. …
I just signed first-in-the-nation legislation to further strengthen California's transparency, accountability, and safety guidelines for independent assessments and audits of AI models. — The Trump Administration needs to get off the sidelines and regulate AI's development and …
Thanks @GavinNewsom for signing a number of new child protections into law, including AB2, which meaningfully increases the costs to companies when they are found liable in court for harming kids. Thanks to @JoshLowenthal for sponsoring it as well as your continued leadership on …