Meta wants to avoid California fines over child safety failures

California is weighing new child-safety legislation that could fine social media companies millions of dollars — and Meta is attempting to dodge the astronomical fees from hundreds of pending lawsuits, anonymous insiders told Politico.

Meta lobbyists have approached lawmakers with suggested amendments that would carve out exceptions for social media platforms before the bill goes into a hearing set for Tuesday. The amendments include a pathway to avoid fines if companies implement a series of default child-safety settings, such as tools to disable autoplay, direct messaging restrictions, and explicit content moderation.

Many social media companies have already launched said features under minor accounts. Child safety advocates argue they don’t do enough to protect children.

Meta’s suggested changes include another safe harbor trade-off: Social media companies could avoid fines if their platforms include parental controls that let parents restrict screen time and monitor their kids’ activity. Many experts argue that parental controls are equally ineffective at reducing childhood exposure to harmful content.

Without these amendments, the bill, known as AB 2, could result in fines of up to $1 million per child if a company is found liable for endangering young users through negligent product design.

In March, Meta lost a court case that ruled the platform, as well as its competitor Google, failed to fix platform design features that resulted in harm to minor mental health. Meta was separately ordered to pay $375 million by a New Mexico jury that ruled the platform was deceptively advertising its platform as safe for children.

Meta recently revamped its minor safety tools, including automatic age detection and global Teen Accounts with stricter content and communication controls.

Amid ongoing litigation, the company has denied all claims that its youth safety features are ineffective.

“Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online,” Meta said in a statement following the March ruling.