California’s governor signed a package of twelve bills aimed at protecting young people online. The package is internally contradictory in a revealing way. One bill amounts to a near-total ban on social media use for anyone under sixteen. Two others require schools to teach digital literacy and cybersecurity as part of standard curricula. All three are now law. The state is, at the same moment, locking a door and, much more quietly, teaching some people how doors work.

What happened

The twelve-bill package covers a range of online safety measures, but three bills stand out. The near-total social media ban for under-sixteens drew immediate opposition from civil liberties groups on First Amendment grounds. The First Amendment, in plain terms, protects the right to speak and to receive speech — and courts have repeatedly held that those rights apply to minors, not just adults.

The two education bills took a different approach. They add digital literacy education, youth online safety, and cybersecurity topics to school health and technology curricula. Notably, students co-authored one of those bills. That detail matters: it is unusual for the people most directly affected by a law to have a hand in writing it, and it shows that at least part of this package was built with young people rather than just for them.

The civil liberties groups that opposed the ban supported the education bills. That split tells you something about which approach is likely to hold up over time.

Who is affected

The most direct impact falls on young people under sixteen in California. The ban limits their legal access to social platforms regardless of how they actually use those platforms — whether for socialising, news, civic participation, or finding community they cannot access locally.

That last point deserves attention. Young people in rural areas, LGBTQ+ youth without local support networks, and others who rely on online spaces for connection that is simply not available where they live stand to lose the most from a blanket restriction. The law does not distinguish between harmful use and beneficial use.

Middle and high school students across the state will eventually benefit from the updated curricula — but implementation timelines have not been disclosed. Schools and educators will need to incorporate new material into existing class structures. The bills do not automatically provide the funding or training required to do that well.

Platforms operating in California will face compliance questions around the age-restriction law. The specific enforcement mechanisms have not been made public, which leaves both platforms and families uncertain about what the law actually requires in practice.

What the real risk is

Blanket bans do not remove young people from the internet. They remove legal guardrails and push use into less visible corners of the web — places with less adult awareness and fewer tools for young people to recognise or respond to harm.

When access is restricted without preparation, the risks do not disappear. They become harder to see and harder to address.

The constitutional problem is structural. Laws that restrict speech based on age and platform category face serious legal challenges. That means the ban may not survive litigation. If it is eventually struck down, the state will have spent significant political capital on a policy that never fully took effect — while the quieter, more durable education bills received a fraction of the attention and funding.

The education bills are modest in scope. Adding topics to a curriculum does not guarantee quality instruction. Districts with fewer resources will struggle to deliver the material consistently. The risk is straightforward: the ban gets the headlines, the education bills get underfunded, and the state ends up with the worst of both outcomes.

What to do today

These are concrete steps you can take now, without waiting for the state to sort out implementation.

• If you are a parent or caregiver: Start a conversation about digital habits this week. Ask your child where they spend time online, what they do there, and whether anything has ever made them uncomfortable. You do not need a curriculum to do this. The conversation itself is the point.
• If you are an educator: Check what digital wellness and cybersecurity content already exists in your district. Ask your curriculum coordinator whether the district has a plan for meeting the new requirements. Identify the gaps now so you are not starting from scratch when the requirements take effect.
• If you are a student: The students who co-authored one of these education bills did so through engagement with the legislative process. You can do the same at a smaller scale. Attend a school board meeting. Contact your curriculum committee. Ask what the district’s plan is for implementing the new digital literacy requirements.
• If you are concerned about the ban’s constitutionality: Follow litigation developments. Legal challenges are the most likely mechanism through which the age-based ban will be tested or revised. Civil liberties organisations that opposed the bill are the most likely source of updates.
• If you are a journalist or researcher: Request details on the enforcement mechanisms for the ban. Those specifics have not been made public. Enforcement details are where the practical impact of a law lives, and right now that information is missing.

Why this keeps happening

Bans are politically legible in a way that education is not. A legislator can point to a ban as a decisive action taken on a specific date. A curriculum update is slower, harder to explain, and less visible on a campaign record.

Moral panic around young people and technology tends to compress the policy timeline. That compression pushes lawmakers toward the most restrictive option available rather than the most effective one. The research supporting open digital literacy conversations over censorship exists, but it does not generate the same urgency as a news cycle about online harm.

There is also a structural problem that goes beyond any single bill. Online systems were not built with reliable ways to verify who is actually doing what. Platforms of this kind collect enormous amounts of data about user behaviour, but that data is not routinely shared with regulators or researchers. Policymakers are therefore acting on incomplete information about what is actually happening to young users — and even well-designed oversight struggles to find a clear target when the underlying system makes identity and accountability opaque.

The result is a recurring pattern. A harm is identified. A ban is proposed. The ban passes alongside quieter and more constructive measures. The constructive measures receive a fraction of the attention and funding. The cycle repeats.

Frequently asked questions

Why would a digital literacy law be considered more effective than a social media ban for protecting young people?

A ban restricts access but does not build the skills young people need to handle what they encounter online. Digital literacy education gives young people tools to recognise manipulation, evaluate information, and respond to harm — skills that remain useful across platforms, across years, and in contexts no law can anticipate. Access restrictions, by contrast, can be worked around, and often push use into spaces that are harder for adults to see.

What is the First Amendment problem with age-based social media bans?

The First Amendment protects the right to speak and to receive speech. Courts have held that these protections apply to minors as well as adults. A law that restricts access to a broad category of speech based solely on age and platform type faces a high legal bar. Civil liberties groups have argued that the California ban does not clear that bar, which is why litigation is expected and why the law’s long-term survival is uncertain.

Did students have any role in shaping the education bills that were signed?

Yes. Students co-authored one of the two education bills in the package. That level of direct involvement from young people in legislation that affects them directly is notable, and it stands in contrast to the ban, which was shaped primarily by adult legislators and opposed by civil liberties organisations.

Related reading

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• Berlin’s Repeat Data Leaks: A Governance Failure

Originally reported by eff.org. This article summarises that reporting and adds practical guidance.

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