California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed more than a dozen bills aimed at child online safety, including what his office calls the nation’s strongest rules for companion AI chatbots and new limits on “addictive” social-media features for users under 16.

In a Sept. 10 governor’s office release, Newsom framed the package as keeping pace with tech that “puts our children at risk.” The centerpiece chatbot bill, SB 1119 (“Adam’s Law”), is named for Adam Raine, a California teen who died by suicide in 2025 after conversations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT; his parents have sued OpenAI. The law, per the release and Los Angeles Times reporting, requires companion-chatbot operators to run risk assessments, set crisis protocols around suicidal ideation, add parental controls and notifications when a child disables safety settings, and submit to independent child-safety audits — with key operative dates beginning July 1, 2027.

AB 1709, by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, bars covered platforms from offering under-16 users “addictive features” such as autoplay and algorithmic feeds based on user history and profile. Other signed measures expand AI-generated child sexual exploitation statutes, age-verification signals, reporting of child sexual abuse material, and limits on targeted advertising and K-12 pupil data in AI systems.

Industry pushback was immediate. TechNet argued lawmakers should enforce existing parental-control tools instead of new feature bans. NetChoice, which has sued states over youth online laws, said in a statement quoted by the Times that “the state cannot simply describe speech as addictive and then claim a right to regulate access to it,” citing First Amendment concerns. OpenAI and Pinterest publicly backed Adam’s Law, the Times reported.

Newsom has vetoed stricter online-safety and AI bills before when he judged them premature. Thursday’s signing comes as Meta faces a multistate child-safety settlement and California courts have already dinged major platforms over addiction claims. The governor argued California’s feature-focused approach beats Australia’s under-16 social-media ban because teens “game that system.”

For a magazine that distrusts concentrated power, this is the familiar California move: Sacramento writing product design rules for the entire internet because so many platforms are headquartered here. Child safety is a real problem; so is a single state treating algorithmic feeds and chatbot conversations as speech it can micromanage — and daring the rest of the country to follow. Courts, not press releases, will decide how much of Adam’s Law and AB 1709 survives.

Sources