Meta Agrees to Pay $17B, Adopt Kids’ Safety Features to Resolve States’ Lawsuits
SACRAMENTO, California — Meta has reached a tentative $17 billion settlement with nearly all U.S. states that would also see the social media giant make sweeping changes to dramatically restrict minors’ access to Instagram and Facebook, the California Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Texas Legislature Revisits Social Media and Parental Rights
Social media's effect on children returned to the Texas Capitol last week, where lawmakers heard competing perspectives about youth mental health, addictive technology, age verification and how far government should go in trying to protect minors online.
Zero Knowledge Proofs Aren’t Age Verification Silver Bullets
Age verification (laws and regulations requiring platforms and websites to assure or estimate that a user seeking to use an online service is of a certain age) is everywhere. At the time of writing, about half the states in the US have some internet age verification law in place, and dangerous proposals, from the KIDS Act to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), have been advancing at the federal level. European Union member states are moving toward having age verification in a centralized app by the end of this year. Australia famously now has one extremely broad restriction in place.
French Social Media Bans for Minors Stalls, but EU-Wide Decisions Don’t
Last week, the French Constitutional Council - the highest constitutional authority in France - blocked the law banning minors under 15 years of age from using social media and other digital services, ruling it partially non-compliant.
Can the government force you to prove your age and identity to download a mobile app without violating the First Amendment? The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will consider that question when it hears arguments this week in two closely watched cases challenging Texas’ App Store Accountability Act.
Iowa Child Social Media Ban Would Force App-Store ID Checks on All Iowa Adults
Iowa's 2026 governor's race moved beyond toss-up territory this week, as a fresh forecaster rating pushed state auditor Rob Sand's campaign into national focus — and the Democratic nominee's signature tech-policy proposal placed Iowa at the center of the country's most contested debate over how to govern children's access to social media. Inside Elections rated Iowa "tilts Democrat" on August 6, 2026 — the first major race-rater to give Sand a categorical edge over his Republican opponent, Zach Lahn.
Another Parental-Consent Statute, Another Injunction: Lessons from Nebraska’s Sweeping Law
Shielding minors from harms ostensibly caused by social media platforms requires balancing the interests of multiple stakeholders in a nuanced, constitutional manner that digital age-verification and parental-consent statutes typically can’t achieve. That point was pounded home again in late June when Senior US District Judge John Gerrard issued a preliminary injunction in NetChoice v. Hilgers blocking enforcement of key parts of a Nebraska statute known as the Parental Rights in Social Media Act.
Senate Social Media Bills Aim to Protect Kids But Attack Free Speech
The Senate Commerce Committee this week advanced several bills that would radically restrict free expression, innovation, and privacy online. Most policymakers sincerely believe these bills will keep kids safe online, but the bills are dangerous attacks on online speech.
Congress’ Age Verification Proposals Are Flawed in Different Ways
Faced with multiple options for protecting children online and a growing patchwork of state legislation, Congress has turned to age verification as a potential solution to some of children and parents’ problems. The logic is straightforward: In order to extend extra protections to children, online services need to know their users’ ages. However, putting that theory into practice is far more complicated. Age verification requirements carry many risks and can end up creating new privacy and security problems.
