The Wave of US Social Media Ban Laws: Protecting Youth or Surveillance?
Bills to completely ban social media for youth are emerging across US states. EFF criticizes them as surveillance/censorship expansion and explains how to fight back.
In the United States, state-level bills seeking to completely lock out young people from social media are rapidly expanding. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), on June 9, 2026, local time, labeled these moves as “the latest wave of censorship bills” and released a detailed explanation along with ways to fight back.
Massachusetts, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, and California—the EFF’s home state—are leading this trend. The EFF recalls that just a few years ago, lawmakers claimed “age-verification laws are narrow measures restricting access to adult content,” and notes that the warnings from that time have become reality.
The prediction that “once the government establishes the authority and infrastructure to collect and verify large amounts of user data, it will inevitably pull a broader range of lawful speech into this surveillance and censorship system” has now come true.
Two Types of Bills
The details of these bills vary by state. Some, like California’s AB 1709, completely ban social media for all young people under a certain age. Others, such as those in South Carolina and Minnesota, require more data submission to prove parental consent in exchange for granting access.
Many bills also mandate default privacy settings, time limits, and notification changes for accounts that cannot complete age verification.
Age verification mechanisms broadly fall into two categories. The first is “Age Verification Bills.” Under California’s AB 1709, starting in January 2027, the operating system will collect information to classify users into age groups, and social media apps will use that information to fully block users under 16.
Florida’s HB 3 is even tougher, requiring platforms to directly verify users’ identities, typically by outsourcing verification to private third-party companies.
New Threat of Behavioral Age Estimation
The second category is “Behavioral Age Estimation Bills.” Minnesota’s HF 1438 and South Carolina’s H 4591 fall into this group. These bills require platforms to estimate users’ ages based on self-reported age, behavioral data, and account information they already collect.
According to the EFF’s explanation, this method is considered a “newer innovation,” but in essence it repurposes existing data collection for age estimation, carrying privacy risks no different from those of age verification bills. There is a concern that users may unknowingly have age estimation profiles built about them.
The Root of the Problem
The biggest issue posed by these bills is their severe impact on freedom of speech and privacy. The EFF warns that “proposals to completely cut off young people’s access to the modern public square are advancing in legislatures across the country.”
The rapid shift of the Overton window toward large-scale censorship is a worrying development for all citizens. Behind the noble-sounding goal of “children’s online safety,” if the government builds a system to centrally manage user identity verification data, the risk of that data being misused is inevitable.
Paths of Counterattack
As specific countermeasures, the EFF cites judicial challenges, public participation in the legislative process, and exploration of technical workarounds. Lawsuits against these bills are already being prepared in several states.
However, technical workarounds have limits. If OS-level age verification becomes mandatory, it becomes virtually impossible for users to bypass. Moreover, behavioral age estimation occurs even if users do not voluntarily provide data, making it a more insidious threat from a privacy perspective.
Editorial Opinion
In the short term, from late 2026 to early 2027, starting with California’s AB 1709, multiple states are expected to enact these laws, forcing technology companies to undertake massive compliance efforts. OS vendors and social media platforms in particular will bear enormous costs to implement age verification systems. This process is likely to intensify legal conflicts between privacy groups and the industry.
From a long-term perspective, once an age verification infrastructure is established, it always carries the risk of being repurposed for broader content regulation or surveillance at the government’s request. The rhetoric of “child safety” is powerful, and the danger of a sliding door scenario—where regulations expand to adults—cannot be denied. It is worth watching whether similar legislative impulses will spread to other countries, such as Japan.
While the editorial board understands the importance of online safety for minors, we believe that regulations sacrificing freedom of speech and privacy do not solve the underlying problem. What is truly needed is a technical and institutional framework that ensures children’s safety without violating privacy. Striking that balance may be the challenge facing all democratic societies going forward.
References
- EFF Deeplinks: How and Why to Fight Back Against Social Media Bans — Published June 9, 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do these bills actually work to protect children's safety?
- Critics, including the EFF, point out that age verification can be easily faked and is ineffective against real online harms (such as bullying or exploitation). Instead, the risks of privacy invasion and promoting a surveillance society are greater than preventing access to harmful content.
- What exactly is behavioral age estimation?
- It is a method that uses machine learning to estimate age from behavioral data such as users' post content, likes patterns, usage times, and friend lists. While it avoids explicit ID submission, the problem is that users are profiled without their knowledge.
- Is there a possibility that similar bills will be considered in Japan?
- It is possible that discussions referencing the movements in other countries could arise, building on Japan's existing regulations such as the Act on Development of an Environment that Provides Safe and Secure Internet Use for Young People. However, due to constitutional protections of freedom of speech and privacy, the exact same type of blanket ban is unlikely to be introduced as-is.
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