Zachary N. Zaharoff
Partner
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP
Specializes in Business Fraud, Class Actions, Elder Abuse, and Personal Injury
Email: zzaharoff@cpmlegal.com
Zachary spent over five years as a litigation associate in Big Law before moving to CPM.
There is little debate that rapidly evolving technologies pose grave risks to children and teens. With the federal government abdicating its responsibility to regulate social media and AI companies--and the companies fighting hard to keep it that way--states and the plaintiffs' bar have been left to hold these companies accountable and take action to address the teen mental health crisis.
This year has seen several landmark victories against social media and AI companies. These victories include jury verdicts and settlements against Meta, YouTube, Snap and TikTok in California and New Mexico for social media addiction harms and violations of consumer protection laws, and a landmark $17 billion child safety settlement against Meta by a coalition of state attorneys general. Last week, Gov. Newsom signed 13 bills into law aimed at protecting children from harm caused by social media and AI chatbot use.
The new laws include restrictions on addictive features of social media platforms for users under 16, such as infinite scroll and autoplay of content (AB 1709). AB 2 imposes heightened damages on platforms that cause harm to children through negligence. SB 867 places a temporary moratorium on selling toys that incorporate companion chatbots to kids under 16. Two bills expand the criminal definition of child sexual exploitation in the online context and impose new reporting requirements. Multiple new bills restrict collection of data and personalized advertising for users under 16, as well as other new privacy provisions. And multiple bills cover use of AI and social media in the education context.
The slate of laws also includes Adam's Law (SB 1119) which, starting in mid-2027, imposes requirements on companies that offer chatbot products to minors, including new safety protocols, notifications to parents, and independent child safety audits and annual risk assessments. The law is named after 16-year-old Adam Raine who hung himself in 2025 after ChatGPT allegedly isolated him from his family and facilitated his suicide. Raine's parents filed a still-pending lawsuit in 2025 against OpenAI with chilling allegations that ChatGPT helped the 16-year-old draft a suicide note and offered feedback on tying and securing the noose he used to hang himself. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI ignored warning signs and made design choices to drive user engagement at the expense of child safety.
New laws are a great start, but no one is protected until these laws are enforced. While California will take on much of the enforcement responsibility, multiple laws provide a private right of action or enhanced remedies so that individuals can seek civil justice. For example, SB 1119 creates a private right of action for children and their parents who suffer harm because of AI chat functions where the platform failed to take specific safety measures detailed in the law. Some of these safety measures include a documented crisis response protocol, timely in-service support with a clear referral to mental health services, notification to parents, and usage reminders and restricted default settings that can only be changed by parents. The law also requires AI companies to take "reasonable measures" to prevent chatbots from encouraging child self-harm, consumption of narcotics or alcohol, disordered eating, causing harm to others, depicting children engaging in obscene or sexual activity, soliciting purchases, or discouraging a child from taking breaks. If the failure to take these measures leads to harm, the AI companies can be subject to liability for any actual damages, including attorney's fees, which, in addition to physical, emotional or financial harm, includes an "offensive intrusion" on privacy rights and adverse discrimination.
AB 2 expands the Civil Code regarding negligence and imposes special liability on social media platforms. Social media platforms that harm minors through negligence now face the greater of statutory damages of $5,000 per violation, capped at $1 million per child, or uncapped trebled actual damages.
AB 1159 protects schoolchildren's data from being used to train AI models and imposes greater data-safeguarding responsibilities for ed-tech operators. A student who is damaged by a platform's failure to comply with this law is entitled to injunctive relief, punitive damages, attorney's fees and the greater of actual damages or $500.
These new laws bolster California's national leadership in tech-focused consumer protection, which already included laws such as Civil Code § 1714.46, which prohibits a defendant who developed, modified or used artificial intelligence from asserting a defense that the artificial intelligence autonomously caused the harm to the plaintiff; and Bus. & Prof. Code § 22601, which includes a private right of action against AI companies if their chatbots do not issue clear and conspicuous notifications indicating that a companion chatbot is artificially generated and not human.
Some of these laws, including AB 1709, will surely draw industry challenges. Industry groups will argue that restrictions on minors' access to social media feeds and chatbots violate their First Amendment rights or run afoul of Section 230. In August, Judge Davila (N.D. Cal) refused to grant an injunction sought by Meta, TikTok and YouTube of a prior California law aimed at addictive social media features, SB 976. Davila disagreed with the social media companies' contention that their algorithms convey an expressive message or reflect human editorial judgment such that they warrant First Amendment protection. The companies have appealed the decision.
Whatever the outcome of these suits, the majority of California's AI and social media laws will likely remain intact. It is crucial for lawyers representing consumers and anyone interested in representing families harmed by emerging digital technologies to understand these new laws and the new routes to liability against the platforms.