"Meta Platforms Inc., TikTok Inc., Google LLC, and YouTube LLC are challenging a California law that forbids social media platforms from allowing minors to access personalized feeds without parental consent.

The law, as applied to the social media titans, is a content-based restriction on speech that violates the First Amendment, according to three separate complaints filed Thursday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

But the California Attorney General’s Office said that the law “is about protecting speech.” The office added, “Companies have blatantly shown us that they are willing to use addictive design features, including algorithmic feeds and notifications at all hours of the day and night, to target children and teens, solely to increase their profits.”

The state AG’s office pointed to its preliminary win in its defense of the law. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the existing challenge to the “addictive-feed protections is likely to fail,” the office said.

This isn’t the first time that California’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act has been challenged. NetChoice LLC—a trade group that represents Meta, Snap Inc., X Corp., and other tech giants— claimed that the law’s content restrictions violated the First Amendment. But the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ultimately held that NetChoice failed to show that algorithmic social media feeds are expressive speech protected by the First Amendment..."

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This article was originally published in Bloomberg Law.