The push is being led in part by parents who say the risks of social media extend far beyond screen time and online bullying. Samuel Chapman, chief executive of Parent Collective Inc., has become an advocate for stronger social media safeguards after the death of his 16-year-old son, Sammy.

Chapman has said there were no obvious warning signs before his son died. Like many parents, he believed the greatest dangers facing his child were the visible ones — unsafe driving, street drugs or encounters with strangers outside the home. He said he stayed involved, asked questions and tried to set boundaries.

But the threat that reached his family came through a social media app. According to Chapman, a drug dealer contacted Sammy through Snapchat and delivered a counterfeit pill to the family’s home after the parents had gone to sleep. The pill contained a fatal amount of fentanyl.

His story underscores a concern increasingly shared by parents across California, including in Southern California and the Inland Empire: social media platforms give young teenagers access to fast, private and sometimes anonymous communication systems that can be difficult for adults to monitor.

Those tools can help young people stay connected, but advocates for tighter regulation say they also expose children to dangers they may not be mature enough to recognize or manage.

State lawmakers are considering Assembly Bill 1709, authored by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, which would bar children under 16 from creating or keeping accounts on social media platforms that use addictive features. The measure would place enforcement responsibility on the platforms rather than on parents.

Supporters describe the bill as a preventive step rather than a broad restriction on internet access. The proposal would not block children from going online or looking up information. Instead, it would delay their participation in account-based social media systems that rely on personalized feeds, private messaging and engagement-driven design until they are older.

Advocates compare the approach to existing age-based safeguards for driving, alcohol, gambling and firearms, arguing that certain products carry risks that require clear limits for minors.

Parents have long been told that online dangers can be managed through privacy settings, better algorithms or close supervision at home. But critics of the current system say many platforms are built in ways that make meaningful supervision difficult, especially when private messaging, recommendations and easy contact with strangers are central features.

They also argue that the companies behind these platforms benefit financially from keeping users engaged for as long as possible, including young users.

Concerns about children’s mental health have added urgency to the debate. The U.S. Surgeon General has reported that young people who spend more than three hours a day on social media face about twice the risk of symptoms associated with depression and anxiety. Other research has linked heavy social media use among adolescents to increased depressive symptoms, poorer well-being, anxiety, loneliness and lower self-esteem.

Supporters of AB 1709 say the bill does not punish teenagers or impose fines on parents. Instead, they argue, it holds technology companies accountable for the products they design and profit from.

The measure also includes oversight provisions intended to allow the law to adjust as technology and platform features change.

California has frequently positioned itself as a national leader in consumer protection and child safety. Backers of AB 1709 say the state now has an opportunity to set clearer rules for social media platforms used by children, particularly as families continue to grapple with the consequences of online access that can move faster than parental oversight.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Should Keep Children 16 and Younger Off Addictive Social Media Platforms appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The 27-nation EU’s executive Commission said Thursday it was opening a formal investigation into Snapchat under the bloc’s sweeping rule book known as the Digital Services Act that’s designed to protect internet users.

The European Commission said that Snapchat requires users to be at least 13 to use the platform but it suspected that the company’s “age assurance” system is “insufficient” at keeping them off.

Regulators said the platform is also exposing teens to inappropriate content because it’s not properly checking whether a user is under 17. And they worried that age checking systems aren’t preventing adults from posing as minors.

The commission suspects Snapchat isn’t doing enough to protect minors from being contacted by “users with harmful intent, such as sexual exploitation or recruitment for criminal activities.”

Snapchat’s systems also aren’t good enough at preventing underage users from seeing information about illegal or restricted products like drugs, vapes or alcohol.

Snapchat “appears to have overlooked” the DSA’s “high safety standards for all users,” said Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.

The investigation will scrutinize Snapchat’s compliance with EU legislation, she said.

Snapchat has “fully cooperated” with the Commission by “engaging proactively, transparently and working in good faith to meet the DSA’s high safety standards – and we will continue to do so throughout this investigation,” the company said in a statement.

User safety and well-being is a “top priority” and the platform is designed with “privacy and safety built in from the start, including additional protection for teens,” it said.

The probe adds to pressure that social media companies are facing on both sides of the Atlantic over the welfare of young people. On Wednesday, a California jury awarded millions of dollars in damages to a 20-year-old woman after deciding that Meta and YouTube designed their platforms to hook young users without concern for their well being.

Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. and TikTok were also included in the lawsuit but settled for undisclosed sums before the trial.

A day earlier, a New Mexico jury handed a $375 million penalty to Meta after determining the company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

Meanwhile, the EU accused TikTok earlier this year of breaching the DSA with “addictive design” features that lead to compulsive use by children, and has been investigating Facebook and Instagram since 2024 over child protection shortcomings.

Also Thursday, Brussels accused four of the world’s biggest pornographic websites, Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos, of failing to protect children from adult content on their websites, following an investigation opened last year.

The Digital Services Act requires internet companies and online platforms to do more to protect European users from things like harmful content and suspect merchandise, or risk hefty fines worth up to 6% of annual revenue.

In preliminary findings, regulators said the site operators failed to “diligently identify and assess” risks to children. They criticized the sites for letting people, including minors, “self-declare” that they are over 18 by merely clicking a link, and said additional measures such as page blurring and warning labels aren’t enough.

Officials said age verification tools are needed.

“Children are accessing adult content at increasingly younger ages and these platforms must put in place robust, privacy-preserving and effective measures to keep minors off their services,” Virkkunen said.

Stripchat and XNXX did not respond to requests for comment while XVideos pushed back against the findings.

“The European Commission is asking us to commit suicide for nothing,” XVideos said in a statement. “Adding age checks on four sites out of a million does nothing to prevent minors from accessing adult content, as we know they will simply move to other, less safe sites that are completely out of reach of regulators — contrary to what the Commission claims — and will cause a massive regression and loss of control.”

And the parent of Pornhub said its moderation and verification go “well beyond what the law requires.”

“Our goal is to get age verification right,” said a spokesperson for Aylo, the parent company. “Our experience across multiple jurisdictions shows that current website-level age-verification solutions often fail, driving users toward unregulated sites with little or no safety infrastructure, and raising serious data privacy concerns.”

The porn sites now have chance to formally respond to the accusations before the commission issues a final decision.

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