Would banning teens from social media violate their First Amendment rights?
Marketplace Tech
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
Four months after Australia’s landmark law that banned all minors under the age of 16 from creating or owning social media accounts, the California legislature is trying to follow suit.
But free speech advocates worry that these laws will infringe on the First Amendment rights of many kids and even adults. However, Aaron Mackey, the free speech and transparency litigation director at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, says there is growing sentiment to regulate and protect children from the harms of social media.
“Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Mackey about how we can still protect kids and consumers without restricting free speech.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Not everything from Australia translates here. Social media bans for kids. |
| 0:07.1 | Vegemite. |
| 0:08.1 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty Carrino. California lawmakers are considering banning kids underage 16 from social media. |
| 0:29.1 | AB-1709 was modeled on an Australian policy and has received bipartisan support. |
| 0:35.3 | But it could run into the same challenges many state laws |
| 0:38.9 | to regulate social media have in the U.S., the First Amendment. That's according to Aaron Mackie |
| 0:44.9 | at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that's filed friend of the court briefs, arguing |
| 0:50.0 | these laws violate free speech rights. I mean, I think what it points to is we're in a particular moment where the biggest online |
| 0:58.3 | social media services are seen as not in the public's interest and also potentially, |
| 1:05.1 | you know, harming kids. But I think the response here, which is to just simply ban all kids from social media, is going to create a lot of problems, actually, for children and also will violate their First Amendment rights. |
| 1:20.8 | This isn't the first attempt that California lawmakers have made to sort of regulate social media. |
| 1:27.2 | We talked years ago about the |
| 1:29.4 | age-appropriate design law. It's also very much in line with laws we've seen passed all over the |
| 1:37.6 | country. Can you tell me about where this kind of fits into the national landscape? |
| 1:42.4 | Yeah, I mean, starting with California's age-appropriate design code, that law has been |
| 1:46.9 | largely blocked as violating the First Amendment rights of both minors as well as the online services. |
| 1:54.1 | And then we've seen, I would say, close to 15 other states pass similar laws that say either we're going to ban kids from social |
| 2:06.0 | media or we're going to require parental permission. And by and large, all of those laws have |
| 2:11.9 | been blocked because they violate First Amendment rights. And then the way in which they're |
| 2:16.1 | implemented by imposing |
| 2:17.5 | age verification gates also violate the rights of all adults as well. |
| 2:22.3 | So these tend to run into First Amendment problems. |
... |
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