The California State Assembly has passed Assembly Bill 3080, which would require social media platforms to provide minors with the option of a chronological content feed that does not use algorithmic recommendation systems to amplify content. The bill, now headed to the Governor's desk, aims to reduce the risk that young users are served harmful, addictive or age-inappropriate material by engagement-driven algorithms, building on California's existing Age-Appropriate Design Code and positioning the state as a leader in child online safety regulation.
Algorithmic reform addresses the content a child sees in their feed but leaves unprotected the direct-message environment where grooming, sextortion and CSAM distribution occur one-to-one, outside the reach of recommendation systems. Guardii, a Meta Business Partner operating across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, monitors private conversations in real time, applying AI detection for grooming language, sextortion coercion and child sexual abuse imagery, blocking hostile messages before they reach the young person and alerting the parent, school or safeguarding authority when a child is at risk, addressing the interpersonal vector of harm that feed curation cannot touch.
