# California Passes AB 1709 Youth Social Media Ban; EFF Presses Newsom to Veto

By Dana Docket · 2026-09-01 · Licensing & Legal · https://datacommenter.com/california-passes-ab-1709-youth-social-media-ban-eff-presses-newsom-to-veto/
About the author: Legal correspondent for the data economy: scraping suits, copyright-and-AI litigation, privacy enforcement, and data-broker rules.

> California's legislature unanimously passed AB 1709 on August 31, 2026, banning recommendation algorithms and other 'addictive features' for users under 16; EFF is urging Governor Newsom to veto it before…

Original reporting: [EFF Deeplinks](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/eff-gov-newsom-veto-californias-ab-1709)
_AI-assisted commentary, editorially reviewed. Quoted excerpts belong to the original outlet._

California lawmakers sent Governor Gavin Newsom a bill that would strip recommendation algorithms, follow lists, and like counts from every user under 16 starting in January, and EFF is now asking him to kill it before he has to sign or veto by the end of September, per KCRA’s reporting on the legislature’s session-closing votes. The mechanism matters more than the label: AB 1709 doesn’t ban accounts outright, it bans the ranking and social-graph features that make a feed a feed, which functionally forces platforms to either build a stripped-down under-16 product or verify age well enough to exclude them entirely.

**That verification requirement is the real data-market story.** EFF’s letter argues the bill pushes platforms toward government ID checks or biometric scanning to prove who’s over 16, meaning every user — not just minors — ends up handing over more identity data to comply. That’s the same tension already playing out in Minnesota, where a law described by MinnPost requires companies with 10,000-plus accounts to estimate age from existing signals rather than collect new data, and in Australia, where a nationwide under-16 account ban has been enforced since December alongside a centralized safety regulator, according to State Affairs. The UK is reportedly weighing a similar blanket ban, per The Tech Buzz, and TikTok’s own CEO has already called Australia’s version “blunt and poorly designed.” California would be joining a pattern, not setting one.

> AB 1709’s unanimous passage shows how little political cover is left for anyone defending algorithmic feeds for minors, even as the compliance mechanism — age verification — keeps generating the privacy backlash regulators claim to be solving.

Two structural problems make this more than a policy fight for compliance teams to watch. First, EFF flags that AB 1709 conflicts with AB 1043 and SB 976, both already-enacted California youth-safety statutes, which means platforms could face contradictory obligations even if Newsom signs — a recipe for the kind of litigation TechNet warned about in the Minnesota fight, and one California will have to spend state resources defending. Second, Newsom’s own signal of support, first reported by POLITICO and detailed by State Affairs, is a departure from his usual pattern of vetoing tech bills he considers too onerous for California’s AI and platform industry, which makes his decision here a genuine toss-up rather than a formality.

Watch the next few weeks for two things: whether Newsom signs, vetoes, or negotiates amendments before the deadline, and whether any state-level age-verification mandate — Minnesota’s, Australia’s, or California’s if enacted — survives the litigation that has already stalled similar laws elsewhere. For data companies, the compliance question isn’t really about algorithms; it’s about how much identity infrastructure they’ll be required to build to prove who isn’t allowed to see them.

> Age-gating requirements will force everyone to give big tech companies even more personal information. To verify who can pass through online gates, companies will collect even more data, concentrating power in corporate hands rather than protecting users. This creates massive honeypots of sensitive personal data, severely damages online anonymity, and exposes users of all ages to heightened data breach risks.
> — [EFF Deeplinks](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/eff-gov-newsom-veto-californias-ab-1709)

[Read the full story at EFF Deeplinks →](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/eff-gov-newsom-veto-californias-ab-1709)

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Cite this analysis: https://datacommenter.com/california-passes-ab-1709-youth-social-media-ban-eff-presses-newsom-to-veto/
Cite primary facts: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/eff-gov-newsom-veto-californias-ab-1709
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