California is reshaping online access in the name of child safety

California has wrapped up its 2026 legislative session with a wave of laws mandating how children interact with social media and artificial intelligence companion chatbots. Assembly Bill 1709 removes personalized feeds for children under 16 entirely, even when parents supervise and consent to their use, while preserving that option for 16- and 17-year-olds. The revised Age-Appropriate Design Code requires companies to take reasonable steps to prevent serious harm to children, including psychological harm, and doubles penalties while removing the previous 90-day opportunity to fix violations.

Design restrictions and blanket feed removal do not distinguish between benign customization and predatory contact. Detection modules that monitor for grooming, sextortion and child sexual abuse material in real-time direct messages identify the specific conversation that poses a threat, blocking or flagging hostile contact before it reaches the child and surfacing a child in crisis to a parent, school or professional. Guardii operates across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms to intercept harmful patterns rather than restricting features for all users, and enables rapid escalation to the right authority when an exchange crosses into emergency territory.