Civil Liberties

Elizabeth Nolan Brown | 1.6.2025 11:30 AM

The courts have blocked two bad tech laws, just in the nick of time. Both measures—in Tennessee, requiring proof of age to view adult content online, and in California, restricting social media features for minors—were set to take effect January 1.

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In California, a court put the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act on hold.

This measure would ban online platforms from using personalized recommendation algorithms to display content to people under age 18, set limits on when minors are allowed to use social media, and restrict the hours when social media companies can send minors notifications, unless parents consent for the platforms to do otherwise. The law said that as of January 1, 2025, tech companies had to implement these rules for accounts they had "actual knowledge" of belonging to minors (switching to a more stringent standard in 2027, when features would be restricted unless people could prove they are adults). The law also said social media companies must report how many minors hold accounts on their platforms.

On December 31, following a suit by the tech trade group NetChoice, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila stopped parts of the law from taking effect. The state could not start enforcing the requirements for notifications or for reporting the number of minor users, Davila ruled. But the state could start enforcing the portion of the law concerning algorithmic feeds (which California calls "addictive feeds"). California considered Davila's ruling a "win."

That was disappointing. There's an ongoing debate among legal scholars about whether algorithms are—or at least can be—expressive content: If they reflect........

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