In the week of 6 November 2026, Meta, Google (YouTube) and TikTok filed three First Amendment suits in federal courts in California against AB 1709. The law, which takes effect in January, bars social media companies from offering "addictive" features to users under 16, defined as design choices like infinite scroll, autoplay and recommendations (KPBS/CalMatters, Nov. 6, 2026).
The strongest case for the law
Supporters have a serious argument. Platforms optimize products to maximize time spent, and minors are less equipped to resist that design. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, which backs the law, says courts have been "rejecting the industry's claims that the First Amendment shields them from accountability," per the same KPBS report. The context is not trivial either: Meta agreed in August to pay as much as $17 billion in a settlement with 47 states that argued it had engineered its products to be addictive to children. A legislature that regulates product design, rather than any particular message, has a plausible claim to being in safety territory.
Why the First Amendment claim is not frivolous
The companies' claim rests on Moody v. NetChoice, decided July 1, 2024. There the Supreme Court explained that a platform engaged in "its own expressive activity" can invoke the First Amendment when the government interferes with how it selects and presents content, citing a line of cases from Miami Herald v. Tornillo to Hurley (Moody v. NetChoice, slip op.). Meta's complaint says AB 1709 makes the state "the editor, curator, and controller of online speech." Google argues it would "frustrate YouTube's efforts to provide under-16 users with safe, responsible, and enriching experiences."
But Moody is double-edged for the challengers. It also warned that facial challenges are hard to win: a plaintiff must show that "a substantial number" of a law's applications are unconstitutional compared with its legitimate sweep. And it told lower courts to analyze each covered function separately.
What the Ninth Circuit already said
That caution shaped the closest precedent. In NetChoice v. Bonta (No. 25-146, filed September 9, 2025), the Ninth Circuit reviewed California's earlier SB 976, which restricts personalized feeds for minors. It held that NetChoice failed on its facial challenge to the personalized-feed provision: "some personalized feed algorithms may be expressive," but that inquiry is "fact intensive," and NetChoice did not show unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh constitutional ones. The court also upheld a private-by-default requirement under intermediate scrutiny as content neutral (Ninth Circuit opinion).
The same opinion is a warning to the state. It found NetChoice likely to prevail against a requirement that minors' accounts hide like counts, treating that rule as content based, applying strict scrutiny, and concluding it was not the least restrictive means of protecting minors' mental health.
Two lessons follow. First, courts will not treat every algorithmic design choice as speech or as non-speech; platform-specific evidence matters. Second, rules that touch how expression is displayed get tougher review than neutral account-safety defaults. The AB 1709 suits are therefore reasonably framed around how the law applies to specific services. Google's complaint, for instance, centers on YouTube's under-16 experience.
Where AB 1709 is exposed
AB 1709 reaches further than SB 976's parental-consent model. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued in its August 31 veto request that, once in force, platforms would be "prohibited from offering virtually every functional recommendation algorithm and basic input, such as who a user follows or what posts they like, to anyone under 16" (EFF). EFF also warned that age gating would push platforms toward "invasive age-verification methods, such as requiring government IDs or biometric scanning," and that the bill conflicts with A.B. 1043 and S.B. 976. After Governor Newsom signed the bill, EFF called it "a functional ban on social media use for people under the age of 16" (EFF press release, Sept. 10, 2026).
That breadth matters under Moody. A ban that covers recommendations on a video service, a messaging-adjacent feed and a private group chat alike sweeps in many applications that are plainly expressive, which is exactly what weakens the state's "plainly legitimate sweep" defense. It also matters for proportionality: a teen who follows an artist or a news account has not been hooked by a slot machine. Treating those inputs as hazards is a design mandate that substitutes the legislature's judgment for the platform's and the user's.
A more defensible path
A proportionate alternative exists, and the courts have in effect outlined it. Content-neutral, narrowly drawn defaults, like private accounts or limits on overnight notifications, have survived scrutiny. Tools that let parents choose, which Google says it already offers, respect family decision-making without banning categories of speech-adjacent features. Targeted enforcement against concrete deceptive or harmful design practices, backed by evidence of effect, would also give regulators a record that survives review.
The risk of overreach is practical, not only legal. If AB 1709 is enjoined wholesale, teens in California get no protection from the law for years while appeals run. If instead it is upheld in broad form, other states will copy a template that pushes identity checks onto every user, which harms privacy and access to lawful speech.
What to watch
The key questions are whether the district courts grant preliminary relief before January, whether they sever the recommendation ban from narrower provisions, and how much weight they give the Ninth Circuit's fact-intensive approach. The sensible outcome is a narrower law: keep what is content neutral and evidence-based, and drop the blanket restriction on basic recommendation tools.