Article Summary
- JB Pritzker signed the Children’s Social Media Safety Act — a bill designed to protect children online and limit their access to addictive social media algorithms.
- The bill would require social media companies to verify a child’s age on the device’s operating system and use stricter features for minors like limiting location-sharing and nighttime notifications.
- Supporters of the bill say limiting access to addictive algorithms that keep kids glued to their screens will help improve their mental health.
- The bill was generally opposed by tech groups.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Gov. JB Pritzker signed sweeping regulations Friday aimed at social media companies and cracking down on “addictive algorithms” that keep kids glued to their screens.
House Bill 5511, known as the Children’s Social Media Safety Act, imposes a series of requirements on social media companies and how they are to interact with users under 18 years old. The law, which will take effect in 2028, was one of Pritzker’s top priorities during the spring legislative session and received unanimous support in both chambers.
“Big social media companies have intentionally designed their platforms to keep kids online for as long as possible,” Pritzker said before signing the bill at an event in Chicago. “Their algorithms learn what captures a child’s attention, which most often seems to be anger and euphoria, and then the algorithm keeps feeding them more of it. Why? The almighty dollar. They feed our kids an unrealistic picture of life and sell them products and agendas to achieve it.”
Under the law, social media platforms must confirm a user’s age through the device’s operating system. When devices are set up for children, parents would set the child’s age, which would automatically trigger certain restrictions required by the state.
To limit the addictive nature of social media feeds, the law prohibits companies from using a minor’s viewing history or data stored on the device to determine what shows up in their feeds. Instead, feeds for minors will only be allowed to show information the user requested or searched for or was posted by a creator the user follows. Kids will also be able to see media that is a direct, private message to them.
“These are common sense protections,” Pritzker said. “They don’t prevent young people from connecting with one another or their loved ones online. They don’t censor anyone. They take decisions about children’s online safety away from the companies and put it back in the hands of parents.”
Stronger default privacy settings are also required for minors, including shielding a minor’s precise location and limiting digital currency transactions. Social media sites and apps would also be prohibited from sending notifications to minors between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
“What we’re seeing is shrinking attention spans, rising depression rates, and in kids, sacrificing sleep to scroll long past when they should be asleep, is a real danger,” House bill sponsor Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview, said.
The Illinois attorney general’s office would enforce the law. Violators would be liable for fines up to $2,500 for each child for unintentional violations and up to $7,500 per child for intentional violations.
“It is important that we balance the guardrails that keep young people safe — guardrails that technology companies should have implemented from the very beginning,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul said.
Raoul has joined lawsuits against both Meta and TikTok, alleging the companies have addictive designs that exploit children.
The law was generally opposed by tech companies. During testimony in committees this spring, lobbyists for the companies raised concerns that the bill would violate First Amendment rights and potentially trigger lawsuits against the state.
The final version of the bill was opposed by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Motion Picture Association, tech company advocacy organization TechNet, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Innovation and child safety are not competing interests,” bill sponsor Sen. Willie Preston, D-Chicago, said. “You do not have to choose between technological progress and protecting children. The greatest innovations solve problems; they do not create them.”
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