No more TikTok FYP? California social media bill could totally reshape kids’ online world

This is an ambitious move by California, and it’s likely to generate a lot of debate—and legal action—in the next few years. The idea of banning algorithmic feeds and enforcing chronological-only content for minors is a big change. Some thoughts:

**Challenges and Unintended Consequences:**

1. **Age Verification Issues**: One obvious challenge is the requirement for age verification. I mean, lol, I think it was harder to fake your age back in the 90s when you had to call up AOL and pretend to be your parent since I was too scared to talk on the phone.
2. **Impact on User Experience**: Algorithmic feeds are often a source of entertainment tailored to an individual’s tastes, which keeps content relevant and interesting. Chronological feeds, in contrast, can feel random, less engaging, and sometimes overwhelming, as kids end up missing the curated feel. This could lead some minors to look for workarounds, potentially accessing other platforms without similar restrictions, and then we’re back in this same circle of hell.
3. **Pushback from Tech Companies**: Face it, they’re going to use all the money in the world to try to fight this.

**Some Potential Benefits, I suppose:**

1. **Reducing Addictive Design**: I’m spending my weekend on Reddit, and that’s probably not good. Shouldn’t we be helping anyone with a developing brain not spend their weekends here.
2. **Protecting Sleep and Focus**: Kids often have a hard time resisting that notification ping—it’s a dopamine hit that can lead to them losing sleep or becoming distracted when they should be focused on schoolwork. A restriction like this could encourage better sleep.
3. **Encouraging Real-World Connections**: The bill also addresses the isolation aspect of social media. Chronological feeds of followed accounts can promote more direct and meaningful engagement with known friends, family, and selected creators, rather than an endless stream of algorithm-selected content, which often feeds users content from strangers and can make meaningful connections feel more distant.

SB976 is a bold attempt to address the well-documented harms of social media use among minors, but its effectiveness will heavily depend on how it is implemented, enforced, and resisted. We need to consider whether such heavy regulation is practical in the long run or if this will lead to a digital whack-a-mole scenario, with kids finding new ways to circumvent these rules as they inevitably try to regain the type of content experience they’re used to. Either way, this will be an interesting one to watch, as it might reshape not just TikTok, but probably every social network. It’s not like they’re going to say “TikTok can’t do this but Zuck can.”