California enacted a new child-online-safety package
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of laws Thursday aimed at reducing technology-related risks to children, including a prohibition on giving users under 16 certain addictive platform features and a new safety framework for companion chatbots used by minors.
The Associated Press reported that Newsom joined First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and state lawmakers at a children's museum near San Francisco for the September 10 signing. The measures arrive after years of lawsuits, legislation and public debate over social-media design, age assurance and chatbot interactions with young people.
The most important timing point is that the package does not switch every restriction on immediately. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the social-media restrictions take effect next year, while the enrolled text of the chatbot measure sets July 1, 2027 for its central risk-assessment and audit requirements.
AB 1709 targets addictive features—not every under-16 account
Assembly Bill 1709 prohibits a covered platform from providing an addictive feature to a California user under 16. The enrolled text defines those features to include an addictive feed and autoplay, while allowing the attorney general to define additional covered features through regulation.
The law requires covered platforms to take reasonable measures to keep those features away from users under 16 and to verify age before offering them. It connects that process to California's Digital Age Assurance Act, which is scheduled to begin operating in 2027.
This is not a blanket ban on every social-media account for everyone under 16. AB 1709 expressly permits a younger user to create or maintain an account if the platform does not provide that user with an addictive feature. The final law is therefore narrower than proposals that would have excluded younger teenagers from social platforms altogether.
Public prosecutors—not private plaintiffs—enforce AB 1709
AB 1709 authorizes enforcement only through a civil action brought by the California attorney general or a local public prosecutor. A knowing violation can draw a civil penalty of up to $50,000 per affected minor; a negligent violation can draw up to $25,000 per affected minor.
Those amounts are statutory maximums, not automatic fines. The text directs a court to consider the platform's size, the severity and duration of the violation and good-faith compliance efforts.
The measure also creates a seven-member e-Safety Advisory Commission within the Department of Justice for administrative purposes. Its recommendations are advisory rather than binding, and it must report annually on age-assurance technology, privacy implications, harmful design features and the effects of online restrictions on different groups of young people.
Adam's Law puts companion chatbots through child-risk reviews
Senate Bill 1119 calls its new framework Adam's Law. Beginning July 1, 2027, an operator must complete and document a comprehensive child-safety risk assessment before making a new or substantially modified companion chatbot available to California users.
The assessment must address covered harms involving reasonably foreseeable physical or financial injury, severe psychological or emotional harm, highly offensive privacy intrusions and unlawful discrimination. The law also requires public-facing child-safety policies and independent third-party audits of covered operators' controls and compliance.
California law already requires companion-chatbot operators to tell users when an artificial system could reasonably be mistaken for a person and to maintain a protocol addressing suicide and self-harm content. SB 1119 builds on that framework; it does not ban every chatbot or every use by a minor.
Families gain a limited path to sue after actual harm
Unlike AB 1709's prosecutor-only enforcement model, SB 1119 authorizes a child who suffers actual harm because of a violation—or a parent or guardian acting for that child—to bring a civil action under the conditions in the law. A lawsuit would still require allegations and evidence tied to a specific violation and injury; enactment alone does not establish liability against any company.
The attorney general may obtain confidential child-safety audit reports for cause, and designated public prosecutors may bring civil enforcement actions. Independent auditors must certify their results under penalty of perjury.
The law excludes chatbots made available exclusively in postsecondary educational settings and workplace-only systems from the operator definition in specified circumstances. Those limits matter because the measure is aimed at companion chatbots offered to consumers, not every automated tool used by a college or employer.
Industry objections and legal uncertainty remain
Meta told the Associated Press that restricting addictive feeds could interfere with the personalized experience it says helps teenagers connect with family and friends and find age-appropriate material. That is the company's policy argument; it does not change the enrolled language Newsom signed.
Age verification, platform design and compelled safety measures have already produced constitutional and privacy litigation in California and other states. Thursday's signatures establish state law, but they do not guarantee that every provision will escape a court challenge or take effect exactly as lawmakers expect.
Parents should not assume the laws replace household supervision or make every online interaction safe. Platforms will need time to issue compliance details, the attorney general may adopt regulations, and courts may be asked to define the measures' reach.
What is confirmed—and what is not
Confirmed: Newsom signed the child-online-safety package on September 10; AB 1709 restricts addictive features for users under 16 while allowing non-addictive accounts; and SB 1119 establishes child-risk assessments, independent audits and other companion-chatbot safeguards beginning in 2027.
Not established: that every social-media platform is immediately barred for everyone under 16, that all AI chatbots are prohibited for minors, that every covered company already owes a penalty or that the laws have survived future constitutional review.
The accompanying image is an authentic July 2020 photograph by Solen Feyissa showing the TikTok application icon on a mobile phone. Wikimedia Commons records the work under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. It does not show a child, a chatbot, Newsom, lawmakers or Thursday's signing event.
Sources and further reading
California Legislature: enrolled text of AB 1709 ↗
California Legislature: enrolled text of SB 1119, Adam's Law ↗
Associated Press: Newsom signs child online-safety package ↗
San Francisco Chronicle: package restricts addictive feeds and regulates child-facing chatbots ↗
Wikimedia Commons: TikTok photograph, author and CC BY-SA 2.0 license ↗