Tech giants sue to block California's under-16 feed ban, which carries fines of up to $50K per child

Meta (META), Google (GOOGL), and TikTok filed three federal lawsuits on Nov. 4 to stop a California law that bans addictive features for users under 16.

The law, Assembly Bill 1709, takes effect on Jan. 1. It bars platforms from giving under-16 users personalized feeds, endless scrolling, and autoplay, and requires them to verify their ages.

The penalties are steep at the platforms' scale. A knowing violation can cost up to $50,000 per affected minor, and a negligent one up to $25,000. Only the attorney general or a local prosecutor can bring a case.

Each suit asks for a court order that stops enforcement of the law.

The claims are largely the same. The companies say that choosing and ordering what users see is their own protected speech under the First Amendment, and that federal law shielding platforms from liability for users' posts overrides the state law.

Meta's complaint says the law would make California "the editor, curator, and controller of online speech."

Each company also says the law would break its product:

• Meta: It would have to "either remove features that keep teens' experiences age-appropriate, or cut thousands of California teens off from family, friends, and their communities," the company said.
• TikTok: It could keep serving California users aged 13 to 16 only by building "a fundamentally different offering."
• Google: Its complaint says that without personalization, YouTube's content for young users "will be buried beneath an endless stream of videos intended for viewers of different ages or with different interests."

The companies lean on Moody v. NetChoice, the 2024 Supreme Court ruling that a platform's choices about which posts to show can be protected expression.

That argument has failed so far against a 2024 California law that requires parental consent for minors' personalized feeds. In August, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila refused to block that law for the same 3 companies. He later refused to pause his ruling while the companies appeal.

Two other Supreme Court cases frame the fight. In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association in 2011, the court struck down California's ban on selling violent video games to minors. In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton in 2025, it upheld Texas's age checks for pornography sites.

For Meta, the suit is part of a costly fight over teen safety. In August, it agreed to pay up to about $18.59B to settle claims from 52 attorneys general, its latest quarterly report shows. About $5.3B of that is due only if rivals such as YouTube and TikTok adopt similar teen protections.

Attorney General Rob Bonta's office said it is reviewing the suits and is "committed to defending California's commonsense laws to protect kids online." Unless a judge blocks it, the law takes effect on Jan. 1.

Sources & Further Reading

1. "Social media companies sue California over protections for kids." Courthouse News Service. November 4, 2026.
2. "Google, Meta and TikTok sue California over law designed to protect children from social media harms." Associated Press. November 5, 2026.
3. "Assembly Bill 1709, Chapter 183, Statutes of 2026." California Legislature. September 10, 2026.
4. "Meta, Google and TikTok Sue to Block California Law Protecting Minors on Social Media." TheWrap. November 5, 2026.
5. "Moody v. NetChoice, LLC." Supreme Court of the United States. July 1, 2024.
6. "Order Denying Motions for Preliminary Injunction, Meta Platforms, Inc. v. Bonta." U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. August 5, 2026.
7. "Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association." Supreme Court of the United States. June 27, 2011.
8. "Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton." Supreme Court of the United States. June 27, 2025.
9. "Meta Platforms Q3 2026 Quarterly Report (Form 10-Q)." Meta Platforms. October 21, 2026.