Meta Platforms, Inc. v. Bonta (26-05120); Google, LLC v. Bonta (26-05121); TikTok Inc. v. Bonta (26-05132)

California’s SB 976 restricts social media platforms from presenting users with “personalized feeds,” meaning content recommended based in part on each user’s predicted interests. Platforms can show such feeds only if they have reasonably determined the user is not a minor or the platform has obtained verifiable parental consent. Starting January 1, 2027, that means platforms must effectively verify the age of every user, adults included, before offering a feed tailored to them.

On First Amendment challenges by Meta, YouTube, and TikTok, a federal district court denied preliminary injunctive relief barring California enforcing the law against them, holding that offering personalized feeds is “not an expressive judgment” because, in the court’s view, unlike content moderation, algorithmically preparing and presenting such fees lacks “moral valence.” Thus, the court held the statute’s restriction of personalized feeds does not trigger any First Amendment protection at all.

FIRE filed an amicus brief urging the Ninth Circuit to reverse. As the Supreme Court recognized in Moody v. NetChoice, curating a feed of other people’s speech is protected editorial activity. That protection does not disappear because the curator uses an algorithm or the audience includes minors.

The district court’s “moral valence” test has no basis in First Amendment law. Protecting only the editorial choices the government deems morally weighty, while leaving choices driven by audience interest unprotected, sorts speech based on viewpoint. It also strips protection from countless decisions that newspapers, publishers, broadcasters, and theaters make every day based on audience interests. As the brief explains, government interference with those decisions equally implicates the First Amendment when such editorial decisions are algorithmically driven.