United States of America: Amendments to Consumer Data Protection Act to Prohibit Addictive Social Media Feeds (Chapter 703, 2025) enters into force

On 1 January 2026, Virginia’s amendments to the Consumer Data Protection Act (Chapter 703, 2025; formerly SB 854) will enter into force. The amendments prohibit social media platforms from providing addictive algorithmic feeds to minors and introduce compliance requirements, including commercially reasonable age verification mechanisms and a default one-hour daily usage limit per platform for users under the age of 16, which may be adjusted only with verifiable parental consent. Additionally, the amendments restrict platforms from using age verification data for unrelated purposes and prohibit them from degrading service quality, withholding features, or increasing prices for users who are subject to these limitations.