Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act
Law to address social media usage by minors
The Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, also known as California Senate Bill 976 (SB 976), is a law enacted in September 2024 to address problematic social media usage among minors.
The law prohibits minors from having "addictive feeds" without verifiable parental consent, restricts push notifications to minors between 12 am and 6 am and during school hours, requires certain default privacy settings for minors, and compels social media companies to publicly disclose certain metrics about their users.
The law was set to take effect in two steps. The requirements for addictive feeds, push notifications, default settings, and disclosures would have taken effect on January 1, 2025, and the age verification provision would have taken effect on January 1, 2027. However, the law has faced legal challenges since its enactment, delaying its implementation.
01Legal challenges
In November 2024, NetChoice, a trade association representing social media companies including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, sued the California Attorney General Rob Bonta for an injunction stopping the first set of the law's provisions set to take effect in January 2025.
Judge Edward Davila partially granted the request, blocking the restrictions on notifications and public disclosures, but leaving the rest of the law unaffected. In January 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily enjoined the entire bill pending appellate review. In September 2025, the Ninth Circuit ruled 3-0 to affirm the district court's ruling and allow the majority of the law.
In November 2025, Meta, Google and TikTok filed lawsuits arguing the law violates the First Amendment.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Great Seal of the State of California Colored.svg by Hendrik M. Stoops Lugo, Public domain
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