Yesterday, TechFreedom was joined by twenty-one scholars of youth mental health and technology in an amici brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to reverse the district court’s ruling and hold that California’s SB 976, the “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act,” violates the First Amendment. Our brief explains why speculative claims of harm to minors do not justify the law.

“The research does not establish that social media causes mental-health problems or addiction in minors,” the amici told the court. “Every few decades, a new mode of communications stands accused of harming the young. Novels, films, comic books, television, video games, and more—all have had their turn being accused of corrupting young people. Each time, the evidence fails to sustain the alarm. Social media in general and personalized feeds specifically are the latest entries in this tradition—and the pattern holds.”

“Fortunately, the First Amendment—and the absence of evidence behind California’s supposed compelling interest—stand in the way of such misguided policy,” the amici continued. “The most rigorous research in this area—including the largest meta-analyses and cohort studies—finds either no clinically meaningful association between social-media use and adolescent mental health or correlations so small as to lack practical significance. Claims about social media’s supposed ‘addictiveness’ are equally weak. Evidence of an association between personalized feeds and youth mental-health is even thinner: There are zero peer-reviewed studies finding a causal link between personalization and harm to the mental health of minors.”

“Minors report a generally positive relationship with social media,” the amici concluded. “None of this is to deny that some adolescents struggle. The evidence, however, strongly suggests that social media itself is not the cause, and scientific research on personalized feeds is nonexistent. In fact, the best available survey data shows that the overwhelming majority of teenagers describe their experience with social media as positive or neutral.”

The case is Meta Platforms, Inc. v. Bonta, No. 26-5120 (9th Cir.).

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TechFreedom is a nonprofit, nonpartisan technology policy think tank. We work to chart a path forward for policymakers towards a bright future where technology enhances freedom, and freedom enhances technology.

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